Heritage
by eggrolljunkie99
Summary: Quite often duty is inherited unto those who have to endure change in order to do their task effectively. A woman inherited a task she was completely unprepaired for. So what does this mean for the JF team? A chance to save the world... Again.
1. Chapter 1

Hey, yeah, Heat's no where done, and I have a billion other fics to work on, but this bunny bit-down and I just couldn't shake the bugger.

Anyways, I don't own Jungle Fury.

Please enjoy .

* * *

Ladies danced about the young girl bedecked in fine gray silks and spring flowers weaved in rings and loops.

"You'll bring such honor Temple Guardian." A woman said, inspiring a chant of echoes from the other women going about in intricate patterns that made the young girl dizzy trying to watch. They froze as the drum beat stopped and parted for the Elder Guardian. She was escorted by eight female pallbearers who lifted her frail old body across the scorching sun-baked tan stone into the main hall where the young girl sat. They hefted her softly to the ground without a sound. All motion stopped as the two stared at each other. The girl gazed with the reverence and fear of a child looking at their parent during an important ceremony. The old woman gazed back with a sadness that things must come to pass, which her charge was not prepared for, but must accept anyways.

"Young one, soon you shall be alone. Alone as I was for eighty years before your arrival. You gifted my life with light and laughter in my last years." The woman spoke in a frail creak of a voice.

_Eight years, today would have been her eighth birthday..._ the woman thought slipping into her own mind for a moment of nostalgia.

"I do not want to be alone..." The girl whispered as her face screwed up with tears as she became afraid of what was happening. Why was the elder speaking of leaving her?

"I am sorry my little one. You are far too young to be left to this task, but I cannot withhold death any longer. You are the new Guardian of this Temple." The elder crooned softly before raising her voice. "Honor her! Honor her and pray to the gods that she be kept safe! Honor her, for she is the new Temple Guardian!" The old woman cried out, getting back into the ceremony, to the other occupants of the room.

"We honor you!" The women cried, drowning out the sobs from the little girl, falling to their knees, foreheads pressed into the floor. Tears spilled down her cheeks, Why were they leaving her?

There were a few moments silence until the old woman's eyes widened in alarm.

"Hurry, the procession must pass the last step of the temple before sundown! Hurry!" Everyone scrambled to get up, including the small girl who climbed down the large stone chair.

"Nay child, you stay here." The old woman told her gently as her pallbearers turned around and hefted her up before rushing out of the temple grounds. "Be good, and remember to wash up every night, and scrub your teeth! And water the gardens and feed the livestock everyday! And practice your reading and writing and Martial Arts!" The woman cried as she was lead out of the temple, holding on to the pallet less she be spilled off.

The girl followed, far too young to keep up with the rushing adults. Down she went over steps and bridges through the emptied corridors to the very last steps of the temple grounds.

Just as she was about to touch her bare feet to the dirt beneath the step, the last ray of the sun slid behind the cliff the temple nestled under, and the shadow of the cliff touched the dirt first. Ghostly arms wrapped around her preventing her form reaching the party not ten feet way.

The girl's blue-grey eyes went wide as the elder woman was propped up on her feet and stretched her arms wide before bringing her hands together in a mighty clap.

And the outside world was clouded in darkness impenetrable.

* * *

The glaring summer morning woke the Temple Guardian. Blue-grey eyes flicked open with no flutter before being squeezed shut again as the woman stretched in her bed. She pulled her body up off the pile of furs and cloths before padding across her chambers to a table with a large cleaning-bowl of fresh water for her to refresh herself with. Her stomach rumbled well naturedly as she dried her face and donned a fresh set of frayed and worn robes. The sleeves went to her fingertips, the product over calculation on her arm growth, with heavy patches on the elbows. Her pants were worn and shredded up to her knees; she wore no shoes, instead she bandaged her feet with strips of cloth from clothes she's long outgrown. She next wrapped her wrists and hands, before pulling her hair out of the way with a comb and pin. There were no mirrors to judge herself with so she left her room to catch her breakfast and start on her chores.

As the fish she caught roasted on a stone slab in the large oven–like fireplaces in the kitchen, with boiled fruit-juices and herbs bubbling on top of them, the woman used the cooking time to get a head start on some of her easier chores. She pulled large pouring pots of water from the well and watered the gardens from which she gathered her food, and fed the chickens in their pen and the cows in their pasture with grain she harvested herself before taking the food garbage out to the pigs' pen for their feed.

By the time she was finished, her breakfast was done.

* * *

Casey sat up straight from lacing his hiking boots and tapped his heel against the floor to settle into them completely. Dom walked into the room, munching on a hero sandwich as he bobbed to a generic MP3 player. He paused as he watched Casey get up and shoulder a backpack.

"Going somewhere?" He asked loudly over the music, his words muffled by the half-chewed sandwich in his mouth.

"Yeah, hiking in the Estrella Mountains, wanna come?" The front counter of JKP was in the process of remodeling, so the store was closed for the week. Dom paused his bobbing to the music for a moment. The Rhino swallowed before responding.

"Nah man, I'm good." Casey nodded.

"Hey where are you going?" Lily asked as Casey passed the bar where Lily and Theo where playing a card game.

"Hiking, you guys want to come?"

"No." Lily and Theo both declined in unison. Casey shook his head before hitching his slipping backpack up further and thudding down the stairs, the key to the jeep in his hand.

"Whoa! Where are you going?" RJ asked, grabbing Casey by the arm.

"Hiking in the Mountains Southwest of here, wanna come?" RJ frowned.

"Pass, but thanks anyways, make sure you have plenty of water, sunscreen, a hat and your morpher." The Tiger gestured that he had it all in his bag. "You taking the jeep?" Casey nodded. "Fill her up on your way back." The younger male saluted and jogged out the door to the parked jeep.

* * *

Sweat dripped off her forehead as she carefully scaled the cliff side to visit the Hawk nest perched in an old abandoned Indian cave. With a final heave she pulled herself up and next to the roosting mother's relocated next. The bird cawed softly at the woman as a finger stretched out and rubbed the bird's head.

"They are going to be adorable when they hatch." She spoke softly. The bird cawed again in response before flapping her wings to settle more properly on her eggs. The woman was worried, the bird laid them rather late in the year, what with fall around the corner, and the eggs where taking longer to develop than usual. But the bird had always produced strong offspring; this time should be no different. With a push the woman launched herself off the high ledge and let her spirit, the Grey Hawk, catch her in the air, letting her drift down slowly.

She could feel it in her feet the instant she touched down on the stone, the temple's disapproval of such antics. She had been there long enough to pick up on the temple's subtle ways of talking. Much like the ghosts that once inhabited here centuries ago, and now trapped by the magic that kept her here as well, she could tell what they were saying in their silent way.

Her stomach grumbled.

"Right, lunch then practice."

* * *

Casey panted as he wiped his forehead and chugged the last bit of water he had brought with him. He winced as his face felt hot and gummy from sunburn. He squinted into the strong afternoon light, stumbling a bit.

"I need to take the... right path to main trail leading the picnic-table area, where there's water fountains." The Tiger murmured as he accidently took an old Indian trail, the sign saying "Keep Out" hidden behind a creosote bush.

He stumbled along, cursing the crappy quality of this path, not even noticing he was going uphill again until he found a shady wide area next to a series of stone steps.

"Must have taken a wrong turn." Casey muttered as he sat down in the shade on the steps and pulled out the map he bought for five bucks at the gift shop in the beginning of the park.

The map began to distort in his vision so he pulled it away from his face, leaned back and closed his eyes.

* * *

He coughed as cold water was forced down his throat, shooting up into an upright position, his face hurt like hell now as he discovered himself sitting on scalding steps, the way late afternoon sun baking everything.

"Oh. You are awake." A female voice spoke from behind him. "Lean back and close your eyes. Your sunburn is very severe; I have ointment that will heal your skin." Casey, in too much pain to argue, did as told and sighed as a deep cooling sensation was smoothed over your skin.

"Ahh, thank you. So what do I do... about this stuff I mean?" The woman frowned as she struggled to figure out what he meant.

"The ointment? Leave it on, when it completely absorbs in, your sunburn will be gone." She spoke. "Now drink, slowly, you are very dehydrated." Casey accepted the ceramic container of cold clean water gratefully and did as told.

"I'm Casey by the way." The woman panicked and thought of an appropriate name to tell the stranger.

"T-Tee-juh." Her voice wobbled at the untruth.

"Teeg? What kind of name is that?" Casey asked laughing as best he could with a dry throat. "Teeg" turned sharply so he couldn't see her panic.

"It is mine own." She bit out to hide her alarm. Casey held his hands up in defense.

"Okay, sorry. So uh _Teeg_ what are you doing out here by your lonesome?" The Temple Guardian's eyes widened.

"Practicing Martial Arts." She said before she could think of another untruth. Casey nodded.

"Ah, I getchya. A quiet place to practice. I practice Martial Arts too you know." In fact she didn't. But she bit her tongue; she hadn't had another person to talk to in... How many years now? Since the pervious Guardian left her to go die in peace knowing a new generation was in charge of protecting the secrets of the temple.

"So... What music do you like?" Casey asked to break the quiet that descended on them as he drank another small sip of water.

"Music?" She repeated slowly.

"Er, how about TV? Like TV?"

"T...V?" Casey eyed her in amazement as she looked at him blankly.

"Movies? Videogames?" He said incredulously as she shook her head, shrugging. This chick was starting to weird him out. Even Master Phant and Master Swoop could tell you what TV shows they liked.

"What do you do for _fun_?" He asked finally.

"Fun..." She frowned.

The cliff's shadow caught her attention.

_He must be out of the temple completely by the time the shadow touched the ground beneath the temple steps._

"I think you are fine to get up and move around, and besides it is getting late." She said nervously as she stood him up and shoed him off. Casey was jarred by her abrupt change in attitude, but made no comments as she was right, it was almost dark. He shouldered his pack and bid her goodbye before he left down the trail, the tiger made it all the way to the path he split off from before he turned around to look at the path behind him.

"I can at least offer to walk her to her car, even if she is weird." Casey muttered before jogging back up the trail.

The sun had already set, shadowing the area, but the steps weren't there.

"What the... I could have sworn..." They weren't there. Even in the dimming light, he could see they weren't, but the strange woman was right, so the Red Ranger turned and walked back down the pathway, determined to comeback the next day.

_Stone steps just don't disappear..._

* * *

He arrived before the sun had fully risen yet. To the exact same place he was before, and this time he brought an entire cooler full of water, and more than enough sunscreen.

The steps weren't there...

Casey frowned, maybe they were merely a mirage... the idea was ludicrous. There was a woman, on the steps, dressed in a thin grey cotton long sleeve and a pair of dark knee-length shorts, who gave him water. _That_ couldn't have been an illusion.

_Teeg._ His spirit sneered; he knew it was a lie. But hadn't pressed it. At the time he thought if she didn't want to trust him with her real name, so be it. But when an entire flight of stone steps vanishes without a sound?

"And to leave not even the faintest trace of having ever been there?" He watched the shadows retreat slowly until the sunlight reached the very spot where the bottom step once...

Casey jumped up as once again the stair were there. Hoisting his cooler up, the red pounded up there stairs.

The woman shot up as she felt Casey's presence on the steps. Hastily she threw on her clothes, not bothering with her bandages or hair and literally flew from her room window to the top of the steps before rushing down them to interfere his progression.

"You do not need to go any further Casey."

"Why am I not surprised to find you here... _Teeg_. Want to tell me your real name? How about this, _why do these stairs disappear at night and where do they go_?" "Teeg" swallowed and gapped.

"What do you mean? Teeg _is_ my name, and these stairs merely lead to an empty camp site, I was camping here and..."

"Bullshit." She blinked, never having herd that term before.

"Excuse me?"

"I can smell your lying. Now I will ask once more..."

"You can _smell_ I am lying?"

"I come from a school of people with animal spirits..."

"You are Pai Zhuq?"

"Will you quit interrupting me?"

"Apologies, but, you are Pai Zhuq right?" Casey sighed.

"Yes..."

"I see, then perhaps it will be much simpler for you to follow me."

"Now, firstly, my apologies for deceiving you, but the secrecy of this place must be maintained at all costs. Yes, my name is not Teeg, and this is the Xiang Temple." She said as they mounted the last step and stood before a massive sprawling temple. This time Casey's jaw really did drop all the way open.

"You live here?" He asked. The woman nodded, starting to feel a little uncomfortable.

"I-I have chores to do, but your welcome to follow me while I do them." Casey nodded following her out of shock. They passed over a rather ornate bridge filled with deep water. He leaned over the railing to see fish of all sorts swimming beneath the water. He turned back to catch up with the woman.

"So..." He began once he found his voice. "What's your real name?"

"I do not have one." Casey blinked.

"Well what do people call you?"

"Temple Guardian." She said, biting her lip in worry that it was not sufficient.

"Didn't your parents give you a name when you were born?"

"I am unaware if they did." She spoke as she came to a well with two large spouted terracotta pots next to them. She hoisted a bucket out of the well and emptied it into one of the pots.

"So, your just Temple Guardian huh? Mind if I go a head and call you Teeg?"

"If you wish to." The silence resumed as Casey let her go about her daily business.

* * *

"So what animal are you?" He asked over the lunch she had made for both of them.

"Grey Hawk." She said shortly, not that she wasn't grateful for the company, but she wasn't used to talking so much. Her throat was starting to get sore.

"Ah, and I haven't seen anyone else around... where are all the people?"

"Just me." Casey nearly spit out his soup.

"For how long?" She placed her bowl down from her lips and thought.

"I do not know, a long while, I was a little child when the previous Guardian left to die." Casey worked his mouth open and closed in shock and horror.

"How long have you been here?" He asked hoarsely.

"All my life. A Guardian is chosen when a child, still in the womb, receives their spirit. When the new Guardian is born, The Elders will send someone to collect the infant from their parents, for both the infant's and the parents' safety, then the babe is taken to a temple to eventually replace the current Guardian." She took a long slow sip of her soup from the bowl as a distraction. Casey sank back in his seat in shock.

"What'd the reason behind that? I mean, it's a lovely temple and all, but what's here worth guarding?"

"Evidence of Pai Zhou's existence. A thousand kings ransom worth of treasures collected over the centuries... other things..." She muttered the last part behind a deep drink of her cooling soup.

"Treasure?" The younger male asked, perking up.

"Not that you will be seeing any of it, but yes."

"Oh come on." Casey whined, causing Teeg to smile slightly.

"What kind of guardian would I be if I let you into the heart of the temple?"

"Did I mention to you this is very good soup?"

"No, you did not thank you for the compliment." Casey laughed.

"That was a joke Teeg."

"Oh." She said shortly, wondering if her cooking was bad. Casey immediately started to back pedal.

"No! No, that's- it's very good soup, I was trying to butter you up to let me see the treasure." Her face showed her confusion.

"What does butter have to do with anything?" Casey laughed again.

"It's an expression; it means I was trying to compliment you so that you'd be inclined to do me a favor." She frowned.

"That does not seem like a nice thing to do... is that how things are done?"

"Wha? Oh! No, your right it's not particularly nice, but I meant it as a joke, if you say no, then it's no. I was just being humorous."

"Oh, should I have laughed then?" Casey sighed.

"Nah, it was a bad joke anyways."

"Ah." She didn't feel completely relieved of the idea that he was being nice to her because she was ignorant.

* * *

As the day ended, Casey bid her good bye.

"Mind if I come by tomorrow? I can bring some stuff from the outside world for you, like new clothes and pizza."

"I do not mind, but it is most puzzling as to why you wish to."

"Well, you're my friend right? I want to spend time with you." Teeg bit her lip anxiously.

"We are friends?" She said slowly.

"Well, yeah, your cool, weird but cool, and we definitely need to work on your language skills."

"Oh, I am sorry."

"And your need to apologize, see ya!"

"See ya?"

"I means see you, as in I will see you later, or in this case I will see you tomorrow."

"Oh. Then "See ya", yes?" Casey smiled and chuckled before hoisting his unused cooler down to the jeep.

* * *

"So lemme get this straight, this chick, lives in the middle of freakin no where, doesn't know what electricity is, _doesn't even know what music is_, is probably a total au-natural, has been completely removed from society her entire life, and lives completely alone and has for most of her life... She's nuts right?" Casey shook his head.

"Not really, she's just..." He drew off with a shrug.

"Oh I get it, she's hot right? That's why you want to go back." The red tiger tilted his head back and forth.

"Eh, kinda, the hotness factor's toned down in the light of her lifestyle." He admitted. "No but seriously. She's cool for being a weirdo." Dom closed his eyes.

"Describe her."

"Eh, on the small side, blonde, tanned, blue eyes."

"I'm getting hotness vibes, what she got like a beak nose or something?"

"No. she's just... well a chick who's lived her entire life away from people."

"Alright alright, I get the picture. One final question, are you going to be talking about her non-stop now? Because I seriously don't care." Casey scowled and threw the dirty rag he'd been using to clean the tables at Dom's head.

* * *

So dearest readers who have managed so far, what do you think? Reviews are much loved, but I won't twist your arm for em.

And regarding continueity with the show, I will go ahead and update regardless of what's currently happening in the show, but my general timeline for this to be started is sometime immediatly after they defeat Dai Shi and rescue Jarrod, however, it's AUish because there are some details I'll leave out (or, as the case may be, ignore entirely.) until it's revealed in the show so I don't spoil anything for anyone.

In addition, no it is NOT a Casey/OC, since while I tolerate Casey more than most reds, I severely dislike red-rangers in general, and besides, I'm a Masters' fangirl anyways ;)


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks Al for being the _**one**_ reviewer. Nothing else to say other than please read and review.

I don't own PR obviously.

* * *

"Come on Casey, when are we going to meet your friend?" Lily said as once again the red ranger was taking the dead hours of JKP to go up into the Estrella Mountains, bringing a cooler of 1 liter soda bottles of different flavors, and a large cheese pizza with cheese, red-pepper flakes and crushed garlic packets for flavoring, kept inside a delivery bag to keep hot.

It was the fifth week straight the male was heading up to the mountains to meet his weird friend.

"Right, well... Just be back by your shift then." RJ said slowly as the youngest ranger practically skipped by.

* * *

"Teeg! I've brought Pizza!" Casey proclaimed as he trudged up the stairs. "And you really need an escalator... it's one of these moving stairs things... I'll explai-" The cooler and pizza hit the stairs and rolled down, spraying a mess all the way.

The temple was heavily damaged, large chunks of rock where blow out of areas, and smoke billowed from the interior buildings. The sounds to shouting and battle easily recognized even from the entrance steps. Casey grabbed his Solar Morpher and put it on, activating the communicator part.

"RJ! I need you to get the Masters and other's and head up to the Mountains, Teeg's in trouble. Take the trail up till you see an old Indian path to the side, it's almost hidden by brush, take that all the way up the stairs."

"Roger. We'll be there shortly." The line went dead, and Casey charged in, morphing along the way.

* * *

"Guys, trouble in the mountains, Casey's called for back up." RJ said as he went to go get in contact with his father and the other Masters.

* * *

When the Red Tiger Ranger reached the door he wrenched it open, and was knocked over by the smoke and heat. Looking up into the afternoon sky, Casey swore he saw a shadowy figure escape. His tiger prickled in agitation.

"GET BACK HERE!" He heard Teeg bellow between coughing fits before she fell to her knees coughing out the char and ash from her lungs. The teen scrambled up to help his friend stand and get her away from the still smoldering building.

"Should I try to put that out?" Casey asked as he led her to the other side of the bridge that spanned the fish pond. She shook her head still coughing and grabbed onto his shirt. When did he de-morph? The thought left his head as Teeg fell to her knees again.

"Stone... will be fine..." She said in a tight choked voice. Casey continued to rub and pat her back trying to ease the smoke out of her lungs.

"CASEY!" Lily shouted as the group de-morphed and ran to the other two. Teeg coughed once more and looked up, still lightly coughing out of reflex, as the group gathered around them.

"Who's this?" Phant asked. Casey stood up.

"Oh, Uh, guys, this is Teeg." Teeg stood up the best she could before a wave of nausea forced her back down with a whimper and a grimace.

"Are you okay?" Casey said crouching back down to her level.

"Three punches to left side, possible kidney injury. Possible internal bruising in chest cavity and diaphragm, left calf muscle more than likely torn, possible internal bleeding, standing up right now would probably be unadvisable. Epidermis contusions will hinder sleeping and regular movement at very least" She grit out mechanically, remembering old anatomy charts and studying what was where and did what, and running a compile of what hurt and what it most likely meant. Casey shook his head free of the medical terms and gently helped her to a laying position.

"Do you have any medical supplies not in that inferno?" Phant asked kindly, seeing as how she was bruised and in no condition to take much more stress.

"Building to the left in the cliff. Fourth floor, room on the right immediately from the entrance way. Un-under the table." She spoke in a rapid soft voice hissed with pain. Finn nodded and took off with Phant Theo Swoop and RJ too look for the medical supplies and search the grounds, while Lily propped Teeg's head on her lap as she used a torn strip of her shirt to wash some of the blood and grime off with water Casey had drawn from the well.

"Is there anyone else we need to worry about?" Dom tried to ask, but she had already passed out.

"No, it's just her." Casey said.

"What? All by herself?"

* * *

Blood-shot, dry, eyes shot open. Followed by a yawn and a pain. She grimaced and moaned, altering her company to her movements.

"Well my dear. It seems you will be awakening." The old man she saw at the temple greeted her; she registered his presence a heartbeat before she realized she was not in the temple.

"Where am I?"

"It's called a hospital, its one run by the Pai Zhuq, so no questions will be asked... it's a place of healing." Phant amended at her confused expression. "You injuries were far too severe for amateur attention." She nodded distantly before straining to get up.

"You'd best remain lying until gabby, my niece, comes here with clothes for you." Phant said gently.

"I am feeling better, the pain is minimal. I must return to the temple, there is much work to be done. My chores are not attended to and I have to repair the temple as best I can." She said, not understanding. The elder man chuckled.

"That's the medicine. And the others are seeing to your temple for the moment." Teeg bit her lip and sank back down into the uncomfortable pallet. She watched Phant as he took out a small device, muttered some word's foreign to her, making the thing chirp, before holding it up to his face.

"Hello? This damned thing working?" In the noisy room she could still hear a small voice coming from the shiny thing.

"Yeah she's awake, and already asking to return." The small voice spoke something else.

"Alright, I'm just having Gabby bring some old clothes for her, and then we'll be on our way." There was some more conversation that was lost to the noisy boxes making strange sounds.

"The doctors say she has lots of bruising, nothing broken or bleeding. She should be fine to move around by herself, but I don't like leaving..." There was more talking from the strange device.

"Oh. I see. Well at any rate we'll be there as soon as... Ah, speak of the devil. She's here, bye." He took the thing away from his face and pressed a finger to its open belly, making it chirp again. Whoever "She" was came in a second after he pocketed the thing.

She, apparently, was a young woman with dark hair and affixation for the color pink.

"Hi uncle. I brought the clothes you asked for." She bit her lip and looked around till she saw Teeg. "Is this her?" The woman zoomed over to her and stuck out her hand. Teeg looked at it confused for a moment before hesitantly extending her hand as well.

"Hi, I'm Gabby; Lily's told me all about you."

"I am named Teeg." _Gabby_ pumped Teeg's arm up in down in her grip.

"So, uh, uncle, if you'd excuse us, I'll get her dressed then we can all go check out and get some lunch for the group at the temple." Phant nodded and ambled out, shutting the door behind him. Teeg returned her attention to the new person.

"Alrighty, up you go." She cooed as she helped pull Teeg to her feet. "Oh my God, you're so light! I'd bet you'd be an amazing dancer." She said as she dug into her clothes pile and pulled out a bunch of clothes. "Now, until we can get you in to go shopping, you'll just have to live with hand-me-downs." She said pulling the strange papery robe off of Teeg. Gabby eyed her body and clucked her tongue in distaste "not an ounce of fat anywhere to be seen." She grumbled.

"I-I live a very active life I suppose." She said apologetically. Gabby looked at her and turned white.

"Oh! Oh no! No! I wasn't saying it was a bad thing; it's just, well... You know what? Never mind. It's a social thing, see people in this era are always striving to be waif thing things, it's not healthy, it's a bad image to sell. But alternatively, so little people actually exercise that the majority's becoming obese, and everyone eats a lot of unhealthy foods that are hard to work off. So to see someone so physically fit and obviously eating right, well, I kinda am a little envious." Gabby said brightly. Teeg looked at the girl pulling articles of clothing out of the bag in confusion.

_Envy: The state of coveting something someone else has. _Her mind recited from her studies. But her mood and tone suggested no ill will.

Finally the pink donning female decided on a gray blouse and shredded blue-jeans for the Guardian.

"Here this is called a bra... it goes on under your clothes and supports you... don't worry these are brand new."

* * *

Phant was waiting at the front desk for his niece and company. He looked up to see Gabby and a squirming Teeg with a look of discomfort on her, heading down the hall.

"Can you sign yourself out?" Phant asked, as they approached the man.

"I am knowledgeable of the skills of reading and writing. But... pardon me if I am mistaken, one must sign their legal name correct?"

"Well, yes..."

"Then there is a problem... I do not posses a legal name." Phant's eyebrows shot up.

"Teeg isn't..."

"Teeg is merely a convenience for Casey, I have no official name, merely a title." The Nurse cleared her throat politely to capture the group's attention.

"The elder's have already asked the Hospital to take care of your paperwork for you Temple Guardian." She said carefully, bowing slightly in reverence. Teeg bowed in response, biting back a wince as she stretched old-bruised muscles and skin, before being led to Gabby's Pink _Volkes-wah-gen_ in the parking lot.

* * *

The world was a weird place, Teeg found, full of division and secularism. Like the Italian Res-tar-rant Gabby dragged her in for her "carb fix". People sat in small groups around small tables or stood in line like they were, completely ignoring the people around them, only coming out of their loosely huddled masses for moments to answer the people who went around in paid subservience.

"Teeg, what would you like?" Gabby asked, drawing the attention of the female back.

"Uhm..." Gabby gestured to the menus above the front desk.

"La-sag-na?" She responding, finding the name to be interesting enough to try.

"La-sag... Oh! Lasagna! Okay and that comes with a salad, garlic breadsticks, and a large drink. What dressing would you prefer? I personally like the house Italian."

"Then I'll try that. And do they offer cherry soda here?"

"Right. Okay." Gabby said smiling before turning to the person in the front, letting Teeg return to watching the rest of the people in the restaurant.

* * *

Master Phant, using the time the girl's were in the restaurant, found himself in a music store, looking for records for the record player Lily had gotten him the other week.

"Master Phant?" He heard Teeg's uncertain voice come from behind. He pulled the large headphones off and turned to look at her. Except she was looking around with fascination at the rows of music lining the shelves and wall.

"This is a music store, they sell music."

"Music?" She echoed, drifting over to one of the headsets. The large black headphones were placed over her ears, like she saw other people in the store doing, and the button was pressed. And quickly the headphones were yanked off.

"_That's_ music?" She said, her chest heaving from the surprise. Phant was over to her in an instant, while the store attendants were looking around to see if there was a camera. _This had to be a scene from a movie shoot_.

"No, _that_ is... Priory of Zule." He said reading the album info at the top. "You might like this better. My Gabby loves them." Phant said as he dug up a familiar cd from the shelf and ran it under the scanners to change the music selection. She gave a tentative listen before pulling the headphones off.

"No?" Phant asked. She shook her head. "Well why go you wonder around and find that catch your attention?" Teeg nodded and left to wander the store, pulling cd-cases that caught her attention off and bringing the pile back to her station, replacing the headphones on and imitating his motion each disk.

Phant watched her explore the music, smiling at her expressions as the piles changed sizes.

"Oh, I like this." She said handing him the object in her hand.

"Loreena Mckinnett." Phant read. "Never heard of her." Phant tucked the cd in with his records and a cheep gray cd-player he picked up that cost ten bucks. A few more cds were handed to him to be placed in his basket.

"Hey, the food's getting cold, and the guys are getting hungry... and cranky." Gabby called, sticking her head in the store doorway. Phant tapped the Teeg on the shoulder and she pulled the headphones off and looked at him.

"Time to go." She nodded and before she could even take her pile of rejected cds back, an attendant was there to take them from her.

"You're going to need batteries for that. We have rechargeable with the recharging station." The clerk called out to them as the approached the front to check out. Phant added that to his purchases and handed the money over for the total.

"Like between us, this is a movie shoot right? Where's the camera?" Phant looked at him oddly.

"Movie?" Teeg echoed blankly.

"Oh! My bad, you're not supposed to mention that are you? Ahem, here's your purchases, thank you for shopping here and please come again!" Teeg looked at him and wondered if it was common to ask bizarre questions.

* * *

"Here, you put the batteries in like this and push the little lid back down like this... and then you take you cd out of the case and put it in the player like this and press this button." Teeg smiled when the music she had been listening to in the store played through the headphones the player came with. Gabby smiled and sat down with her spaghetti with meat-balls while Teeg took her cd-player to the place where her food was waiting for her.

"What cds did you buy?" Lily asked picking up the bag and riffling through it. "A lot of instrumental and Celtic music huh." She knew she wasn't heard over the music, but she didn't mind.

The healing woman stretched down to rub her strained calf, nearly spilling her food on the ground.

Lily took the food from her lap until the female was done massaging her sore limb. Teeg pulled the headphones around her neck and thanked Lily before reclaiming her food.

"Teeg, how's you lasagna?" Gabby asked, reminding her to eat. Teeg extracted her eating utensil, an odd cross between a spoon and a fork, from its clear stretchy sleeve and dug in.

"What is this called again?" She asked after several more bites.

"Lasagna, I take it you like it?" The woman nodded before digging in again. Lily and Gabby laughed before starting up a conversation about the next dance competition season. Soon Teeg placed her empty tray in the ground before taking up her salad and breadsticks.

"Say Lily, what have the guys been up to? I haven't seen them since I arrived." Gabby asked as Teeg's small salad was devoured and her breadsticks went next. Lily shrugged and turned back to her ravioli.

The female finished off the last of her food and abandoned the empty containers in her empty lasagna tray before starting on her soda.

"Hey, Teeg? The Masters want to talk to you." Casey came up, smiling to Lily and Gabby by way of greeting.

Teeg got up, wincing at the movement, and followed Casey to where the guys were resting by the well or in the shade, half dressed and panting in the hot late summer afternoon. She took a thick swallow of her saccharine drink as she watched small beads of sweat roll down their skin.

"Y-yes?" She wanted to curl in on herself. The Master with the long blonde hair, currently tied back away from his face and neck, craned his head up to smile at her and she felt an unfamiliar heat spread in her face and belly. She almost hid behind the drink she held in front of her face, eyes directed on the lid, straw perched in her mouth. The symptoms confused her, they weren't pleasant, and made her toes want to wiggle and curl in her shoes.

_She must be really shy, after all she's never had this many people around her._ Finn thought as she refused to look at them.

"Do you know what was in that room that caught on fire?"

"Kraken." There was a pause before Finn cleared his throat.

"Beg pardon, but it sounded like you just said _Kraken_. As in the giant mythical squid that would wreck ships, and eat the souls of the drowned."

"I did."

"Why on EARTH is there a **kraken **in the Sonoran Desert_?_" Finn asked. Teeg meeped and began to shrink back. Finn's expression softened.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to infer that you had anything to do with it, but it's been a long day, could you explain why there's a kraken in the middle of the Sonoran Desert?" She took a deep gulp of her watered down soda and opened her mouth.

"Years, possibly even centuries, before the beast wars, the Sea Overlord Jellica's Father, the Sea God Kraken ruled all waterways in the world. As most of the costal life began to become wise to his ways and now used methods of prevention to ward him off, his reign of terror began to diminish to those areas inland, where he rarely visited.

"Here for instance, he was very fond of tormenting the tribe of natives that dwelled here. Then one day a band of Pai Zhuq came from across the sea to end the reign of the Sea God. And while Kraken was a god, and powerful where there was water, he was weakened by the heat and dryness, even with the rivers and streams in the area. They defeated him many, many, times, but he kept regenerating, and so long as he was still alive, he would regenerate endlessly.

"So the Shamans from tribes across the continent came together with the warriors, and it was decided that it might work to try and separate his spirit from his body. So they devised a method of doing exactly that and succeeded to pull Kraken's soul form his body and imprisoned it within a large crystal." She recited from the old tale, finished her drink with a final slurp and handed it to Casey who stuffed it in the bag they were stuffing their garbage in.

"So they kept the soul here, where he was weakened, and erected this temple and appointed a guardian to protect it. But he escaped, do you know how? And what of his body? I assume it was moved to a separate location." She shook her head, looking down at her feet.

"Kraken's soul, his spirit, was the part that gave him the ability to control water; they kept it here because it was too dangerous to move it elsewhere since by water was the predominant method of travel at the time. And all he needed was one drop of liquid and he could have freed himself, but I do not understand how he got out, I recently re-patched the ceiling and roof in anticipation of the Monsoon season."

"Great more bad news." Dom muttered. "What about his body?"

"Destroyed, the Indian tribe chopped it up and ate it to ensure he would never be able to escape his imprisonment and find it."

"Okay, gross. But wouldn't that make his body part of theirs? Wouldn't that mean he could regenerate from the tribe's descendants?" Theo asked between gulps of water he chugged, not caring that it dripped from the bowl down his unclothed front. Teeg looked away and found the cracks in the stone floor fascinating.

"Wipe out by a plague."

"That seems a little too convenient. His body being destroyed in probably the only way that it could have been. So what is he going to do now? Unless he can recreate... he can't can he? Recreate his body form a substitute I mean." RJ asked as he leaned forward in his sitting position, his elbow resting on his knees.

"I doubt it... there might be a spell or rare occurrence that might be able to do the trick, but I don't think he's capable of doing anything on his own." Finn responded.

"He doesn't need to, it was his soul that could control water, he can still terrorize people with that." Swoop interjected.

"I want to know how the hell he started that bonfire." Casey said.

"_When the dark waters stir and a thick mist falls upon the land and red eyes appear out of the sea, the devil-fish is nigh. Burn thy dead for Kraken cannot stand the stench of burning flesh. Should he come upon shore, burn thy foliage for he cannot abide the heat of flames_. - It's a quote that was translated from an old Viking record of Kraken attacking a village and leaving when a building caught fire in the panic and burned a family to death. This account was passed on from sea village to sea village, which was what drove him here, when he escaped I chased him back in there and started the fire to try and trap him. It weakened him greatly. But not sufficient enough for me to subdue him."

"Dude. You speak _Viking?_"

"Er... "Dude". I believe the most appropriate response would be: _I have had an entire lifetime to do nothing but chores, study, and practice Martial Arts_. However, in answer to your question: no, not fluently." She smiled softly at her attempt at humor.

* * *

As the late afternoon settled, Teeg was out grumbling under her breath and she hauled large sacks of grain and cattle feed grass to her cattle pens, as well as dumping her garbage from before and during her absence into the pig pen, and emptying the remainder of her grain bag into the chicken coop before rushing off to water her gardens/irrigate her crops.

"Why did Casey not tell them that I needed these things done?!" She complained to her docile milk cow who mooed appreciatively as it ate the proffered long grass. She scratched the cow behind the ear and rushed off to water her wilted looking crops. A few days neglect wouldn't kill everything, but Teeg felt a deep swell of guilt over that fact that they are her responsibility, her life support; she should take care of them. She came to the fields and yanked the trench stoppers out letting the canals flood the fields.

"Sorry, I was away for a while." She grumbled feeling the need to offer some form of apology. Once the fields were flooded sufficiently, she replaced the stoppers, faulting the flow of water and turned to her gardens and grabbed the large pour pots to take to the well.

"Hey! So there's where you disappeared to. Anyways what's up?" Casey said as he padded down the steps, the masters and other rangers behind him.

"Casey, I am very grateful that the flooring was patched, however, did it occur to you that I might be more gratuitous had you taken care of my livestock and crops instead?"

"Ah, damn, sorry it slipped my mind." He said swinging his fist in the air. "So anyways, ready?"

"Ready? For what?" She said as she hauled the pots to the garden, ignoring the dull pain of her bruises.

"To get out of here. We got to get going before sundown right?"

"Yes, it is advisable if you do leave before you have no chance."

"You're not coming with us?"

"Why would I leave?"

"Well the Kraken-thing escaped, your job's void, you don't have to stay here anymore." She froze. Did she no longer have an obligation to this temple if the thing she was supposed to Guard was gone?

"I-I am the _Temple_ Guardian, my duty's here regardless of Kraken's whereabouts." She turned to look at him, but could only think of earlier. She had never seen a male disrobed and in person. She did not exactly like the reaction it caused in her. She knew the outside world was full of things like that... things she would not like.

Casey frowned. He didn't like her staying here by herself, especially if there was no reason, but if she was absolute he could always return tomorrow to try to persuade her again.

The Red Ranger met up with everyone at the bottom of the steps leading in.

"Alright guys. She's decided to stay." He said, bouncing from one foot to the other. RJ nodded.

"I suspected she would, alright guys, I think someone should spend the night with her since she is banged up still from her fight and-"

"I will." Finn, Swoop, and Casey all said at the same time. The three looked at each other while RJ pinned them with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh? "

"I don't like her being by herself period, and since I'm her friend, it'd make more sense if I stayed." Casey stated.

"Except it's all hands on deck in JKP since I gave Fran the week off, paid, for opening and closing the store by her lonesome this entire time." Everyone looked at him in surprise. "What? It was either that or risk her quitting again. I _need_ non-ranger employees; I can't just close down the parlor every time there's a monster you know." The group rolled there eyes at him.

"It should be a Master. For all we know Kraken is still in the temple grounds and in her current condition she'd be an easy target for revenge. And as a person with an Oceanic-based style..." Finn began.

"You'd be no match against something that controlled water." Swoop interrupted.

"Like you'd be any better against a spirit. They're incorporeal you dumb bat."

"Oh real mature!"

"Alright, you both can stay!" RJ shouted, heading off the pursuing fight before it could happen. There was a brief moment of awkward silence before RJ said that they had to get going.

* * *

RJ didn't say a word until they all piled into the jeep and where on their way back to the loft.

"What _was_ that all about?" He asked as he shifted in his seat, waiting for the car in front of him to inch forward in the super heavy traffic jam.

"What your dad and Swoop? Probably wanted to hit on Teeg or something." Dom said as he stared out the window.

"_What?!_" RJ yelped. "Oh no. My dad does not date." RJ said resolutely. "Neither does Swoop for that matter." He added. Dom grinned, sensing a prime topic to rib his friend about.

"What? She's pretty and let's face it; it's pretty damned hard to find a chick more socially clueless than both Finn and Swoop." There was a moment of laughter until RJ's mood soured again.

"But that's pretty low; I mean she probably doesn't even know what it _is_ people do in relationships."

"I'd imagine she'd know the technical, but probably not the graces and unspoken rules, what better way to learn then?" Dom asked waggling his eyebrows.

"I can _not_ believe Fran's dating you." Lily said, smacking him on the arm.

* * *

So readers, stay tuned for next week's update XD. And rememeber! Reviews are greatly loved


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3, Enjoy.

I don't own.

* * *

Carefully, one motion at a time, she scaled the cliff to the ruins. Not that she had a particularly perilous time climbing, but she was afraid of drawing attention to herself if she moved anymore rapidly.

In her head she could still hear Finn and Swoop; it seems they could not agree on anything: Chicken or Pork, Sweet or Spicy, Who would help her with her chores, Who would accompany her to the baths to make sure Kraken wasn't in there.

It was at that point in time she decided to let them finish their argument without any interference from her, since that seemed to only agitate their next fight. So she decided to climb the cliffs and visit the hawk nests in the abandoned ruins. She reached the caves and wiped her forehead, feeling the dried mud crumble off from when she had been weeding her plants. She crawled in and seated herself in the back, watching the bat pups crawl around waiting for their parents to awaken and feed them.

It was a different cave then what her hawk friends were nesting in. One with a smaller entrance but a larger cave behind the crawl-hole where light was filtered through a hole about two feet in diameter and was rank with bat inhabitant. But the cave systems were warm, even in the dead of winter, and it was dark enough to loose herself in her mind, even with the smell.

Teeg, as she was now comfortable to call herself, had to admit, Finn and Swoop bothered her. She did not like these symptoms they evoked, the heat in her face, the strange churn in her stomach that made her think that she was going to throw up, the spasms in her feet that made her want to move, to curl and shift her feet. Such a strange sickness they inspired. Her time of being with Casey did not transmit such a sickness, neither did Phant at the "hos-pee-tal" and neither did the people she had seen, nor Lily and Gabby made her sick like that. But this afternoon as the males were disrobed, she had been struck with the illness? And such a strange disease to merely affect her in the company of males, when she had excused herself to Lily and Gabby's company after she was done with their inquisition, the symptoms alleviated. That matched no illness she knew of. Maybe an allergy. That was more fitting.

So... she was allergic to Finn and Swoop specifically... since she was not affected by Phant, Theo Lily, Gabby, and Casey. The other two she was not properly introduced to were still variables. She worried her lip between her teeth and absently noted that they were starting to chap and peel.

RJ, Casey identified him as the one in purple, was Finn's son, according to what she's heard, and that RJ used to train under Master Swoop. So it would be logical that any allergies she had to either man would be the same for RJ... but Casey also trained under Finn, and he didn't seem to bother her at all. So maybe there wasn't an associative property to the allergy, but that didn't relieve RJ of being a variable.

She thought back to that afternoon when Casey was framed in the afternoon sunlight.

...Possibly there was something to the theory that there was an associative property to the allergen.

Her stomach growled before she could think further. A smile stretched her mouth.

"Alright, a bath, then dinner..." She decided, crawling out of the hole and crouched on the lip before pushing off, letting her hawk spirit keep her aloft in the air. With a flip in the air she settled down on top of the bath house and dropped down to the ground below.

* * *

The Bath was a large sandstone building erected over a natural spring well, with a giant crystal they placed on top that could refract light to heat the water inside. According to documents in the library and petroglyphs in the area, the crystal was one of two the Pai Zhou had brought with them, when they didn't need the other crystal, they must have somehow figured out how it could be used to heat water by concentrating sunlight.

Regardless of how it came to be, the bath house was what it was. She pulled the door open slightly and slipped in. Steam rose from the large organic pool where Swoop and Finn were already, enjoying the warm water.

"Is the water to your liking?" She asked, causing the two men to jump in shock. She was rewarded with a full frontal view for a second, before they splashed around in the water till they were submerged up to their necks. She pressed her hand to her mouth, as a strange mixture of that churning feeling, intensified, mingled with her need for laughter at their antics. She kept her hand to her mouth and one over her stomach as she walked to her choice location, hoping her allergies weren't going to make her sick in the bath.

"W-what are you doing?" Finn asked in an odd high pitched voice as she began to remove the clothing Gabby had given her earlier that day.

"I am preparing for a bath myself, I have been encased in mud much longer than I desire to tolerate." She said focusing on the "bra" her fingers searched her back for the part that held the material together. Finally she found the "clasp" and tugged on them until they came apart. They joined the piled of clothes, there was a huge splash and the sound of someone choking on water.

"Is there a problem with your bath?" She asked, fulfilling the part of hosts she had read about. Finn whirled around and hunched in the water, the back of his neck red, while Swoop was red from the tips of his ears to the collar bones.

"Are you well? Your skin is an unnatural shade of red, and the water is not hot enough to cause such discoloration." There was a moment of silence before Swoop spoke.

"Temple Guardian, if you are not aware, it is improper for men and women to bath together unless they are married." Teeg reared back, a feeling of wanting to disappear coupled with the heat in her face washed over her.

"Ah, my sincerest apologies, I was unaware that I was committing such an offense. Please accept my apology." She said returning quickly to her side of the bath to gather her things before retreating for the house.

"Way to go Swoop! We could have just let her bathe on the other side of the pool out of sight. But nooo. You had to go chase her off! Now the rest of the evening's going to be unbearable!" Finn grumbled leaning back against the rock siding on the pool. Swoop sent the man a sneer.

"She needed to be let known, not telling her would have been just as bad as taking advantage of her." Finn harrumphed and crossed his arms before accidently slipping on the rock flooring under the water.

* * *

Dinner was way later than she usually made since she had to wait for the men to vacate the bathroom. And even after she had made dinner, she took her food and locked herself in the library, unable to be around the two without the same sensation she experience in the baths burning in her hot and sick.

Scroll after scroll of symptoms for common allergies were piled in front of her, the languages blurring into one unintelligible mass of squiggles.

Teeg shoved her food back and forth across the plate feeling ill at the thought of eating at this late. And nothing in text in front of her gave her any clue as to what was going on with her.

A headache began to form as she took her plate and left the library.

Without sufficient documented evidence of such an allergy existing, it would be fool-hearty to assume there was a reason that Finn and Swoop specifically caused such reactions, no, best wait till she could gather more information.

Bypassing the kitchen, Teeg dumped her food in the pig trough and placed the dishware on the ground near where she favored to practice her martial arts.

* * *

Racks of weapons lined the walls of the outside dojo.

She chewed her lip a bit as she looked at each weapon, deciding which one she was in most need of learning, of course she could also go for her standard throwing knives.

In the end she opted to go for unarmed combat training.

She let her mind go blank as she took her stance, letting the positions come to her as easy and normal as breathing. Entire complex katas spun out before her as she retraced the well familiar steps and gestures.

A backwards kick sent her foot crashing into something much much thicker and harder than air.

And air generally didn't make an "oof" sound for that matter...

Nor did it inspire laughter from the surrounding air...

Somewhere to the left and behind her. It sounded a lot like Master Swoop... the laughter that is.

"Strong kick you have there." Finn wheezed.

"I am so sorry! I should have been more aware of my surroundings! Please accept my apology." She said bowing to the hunched over man grasping his stomach.

"No no, it's my fault for sneaking up on you. We were admiring your technique; you don't practice with others do you?" Teeg shifted her gaze away.

"No, there is no one to practice with."

"I see... would you like to spar against me? We'll see how good you are." Teeg shifted uncomfortably, at war with herself over her sincere desire to avoid further embarrassment, and her desire to be a better martial artist.

"If you would like." She said finally. Finn smiled and dropped his swords out of the way before taking his unarmed stance. She followed, and allowed her mind to be sunk into the spar.

* * *

Finn quickly realized she was about as unprepared for actual combat as a martial artist could get. Her technique was flawless, but mechanical, she knew his moves the instant he shifted, and could counter, but had no follow through, her style was too... mechanized. She lacked organic grace and quick thinking. And that was only what he witnessed fighting her, now that she was against Swoop, and loosing again, he could see how devoid fighting was for her. It was a method, a reaction. Most Martial Artists struggle their entire life to obtain that kind of analytical and reactionary ability, but she had it without the feel in battle, it was little surprise Kraken got away, all technique and no soul.

She landed on the ground and didn't get up. Swoop backed off and stood next to Finn, both of them worried when she made no effort to get up.

"I... should have expected to loose yes? You both are Masters, I should have expected to loose." She said slowly, before she pulled herself off the matt. Swoop and Finn looked at each other worried.

"You...lack organic movement... you are relying heavily on your training, on a systematic approach to fighting. If this would have been a real battle, you would have lost, I'm sorry." The Bat Master spoke. She nodded as she rose off the floor.

"I see, thank you." She said slowly. "But if you do not mind, I believe it is already past a decent time to retire for the night. I will show you to your rooms, or if you'd prefer you may have use of the bath house before you sleep." Finn and Swoop looked at each other in concern before Finn spoke up.

"No Teeg, you look tired, we shouldn't have kept you up, thank you for humoring two old men. Why don't you go to bed and we'll find our way to our rooms." She nodded and made her way out of the training area, making sure to take her dishes with her.

Teeg sniffled, trying to clear her nose of the fluid gathered as she scrapped the food into the bin to be taken out to the pigs tomorrow, the dishes were dumped in a basin for washing and left there. She dashed the hot sticky water from her eyes as she made her way to her chambers, her arms winding themselves around her middle. Once inside her room she pushed the door shut and pulled her clothes off, leaving them in a pile on the floor instead of being put in the basket to be washed. She slid under her covers, her head resting on the pillow; she blew out the candle and let the darkness swallow the room.

"What good was I as a Guardian if I can't even win in a spar?" She asked the ghosts in the dark with a thick, choked, voice.

* * *

Review please.


	4. Chapter 4

Hey! Chapter four. Enjoy

* * *

When Teeg awoke the next day, her eyes were sticky and rough; her head pounded and ached like nothing she had ever experienced before. She groaned and rolled over, trying to escape the light when her hand found a box of something with a handwritten note stuck on top by a thin strip of a clear ribbon that was sticky on one side. She read the note as she busied herself with trying to remove the ribbon from her fingers.

_Sorry to keep you up so late last night. Swoop and I had to leave to take care of business so we left, but brought you back some breakfast as a Thank You. Gabby and Phant will be by later._

_Finn._

Teeg placed the note aside and pried open the lid to reveal a platter of fruit, most of it very strange, and an assortment of strange creams in the center, with sugared grains clumped together in a clear sealed pouch, and something called "Candied Assorted Nuts" in another. She drew a blank what those could possibly be.

"Oh! You're still in bed? Well I suppose Finn and Swoop did drill you hard in those spars. They said it was probably best if they cleared out to give you a few days. Ooh... they brought you back breakfast... Oh this place is really good for a light healthy breakfast. They serve all sorts of fruit and yogurt and granola and candied nuts." Gabby chattered on as she seated herself on Teeg's bed. "Jeez this thing's like a rock! Don't tell me you sleep on this?! Anyways, ooh, they have blueberries, can I have one? I love blueberries!" Teeg mumbled that she did not mind, still a little fuzzy, but her headache had been dulled to steady ache. Gabby opened a previously unnoticed white box that revealed more Cherry soda sitting in a tub of ice. "Oh, yeah," Gabby continued "RJ had Finn bring this back for him and the others." Teeg snagged a bottle and began tugging on the cap to try and remove it. Gabby took the offending bottle and twisted, freeing some of the carbonation. "You twist. Like so, but be careful sometimes they fizz up and you'll end up with a sticky mess." Teeg nodded slowly before sitting up, being careful to tuck her blanket around her to avoid exposing herself, since apparently nudity bothered people.

"I need to dress myself." She stated quietly.

Oh!" Gabby turned to give her privacy, all the while still talking about whatever popped in her head. Teeg tilted her head but disregarded the thought before she got up, careful not to spill the food, and pulled out clean clothes from her shelves, she got to the bra part when she tripped up, this one latched from the front, and there where to little tabs, but the mechanics of operating this one escaped her.

"Here." Gabby said turning to help her. "It goes like this, thread at an angle, slide together, and pull straight till it snaps." Teeg watched as Gabby worked her undergarment clasp.

"Thank you." Gabby beamed at the Guardian.

"You really are too cute some days." Teeg tilted her head in confusion, but resumed getting dressed. Once her shoes and everything was in their place, she returned to her breakfast. Gabby had already stolen the extra spoon and was helping herself to the pink "yoh-guhrt".

"There's a Cherry yogurt there, I guess you must really like cherries." The pink wearing woman said from her place. "Oh, I hope you don't mind me stealing some of your strawberry yogurt." Teeg shook her head indicating that she didn't mind. She took her other spoon-fork hybrid and pulled up a red cup and spooned a dollop of the mixture into her mouth, relishing in the taste, sweet and slightly tart and creamy. She finished off that container and looked at some of the other ones the "gra-no-la" and the candied nuts and fruit. She picked up a large dark red berry and inspected it.

"That's a Strawberry. You might like it. I love them, but I prefer chocolate covered strawberries." Teeg smiled wanly.

"From all the hype I hear about this chocolate, I would expect it to be able to raise the dead." Gabby laughed.

"I'll have to buy you a chocolate bar next time I come over."

Gabby chattered on while Teeg sampled the fruit and figured out which ones she liked and didn't like.

"Don't you think Theo's cute?" Teeg looked up.

"Cute as in likeness to a pet or infant?"

"Cute as in attractive."

"Attractive?" Gabby blinked before remembering that Teeg had lived most of her life alone.

"You know, funny feeling in your stomach, heat in your face, inability to be impressive around them, feelings of inadequacy, staring-at-them problem. Attractive." Teeg swallowed thickly. Gabby watched the Guardian's throat work up and down as she swallowed. "Is... there someone you feel attracted to?" She asked slowly, gauging the blonde's reactions.

"No." Teeg said turning back to her vanilla yogurt with candied nuts and granola mixed in.

"Well, good. I mean, sorry, but Theo's mine, Dom's dating Fran... you haven't met her yet, And Lily's got a claim on RJ. And Master Swoop's rumored to have this weird thing with his former student, but they're not talking right now, and haven't for the last year, so he might be available... but I wouldn't want to go up against her in a fight if he's not. And no offense, but if you have a thing for my uncle I absolutely forbid it." Teeg wrinkled her nose at the thought.

"No offence, however, your uncle's... I- Well he is a very nice man and all..."

"He's old, I get it." Gabby smiled. "He was already fifteen when my mom was born, and mom had me when she was twenty-eight, and I'm twenty now. So that makes him about sixty." Teeg nodded as she scraped the last of her yogurt up and into her mouth.

"What about Casey, no one finds him attractive?" She asked more interested in grabbing another "ah-pol" slice and using it to get at the last vestments of vanilla yogurt in the cup.

"Casey? I suppose he's got that innocent boy-next-door look. But no one I know of likes him like that... Probably because he's the youngest."

"Ah."

"Say, how old are you?" Teeg looked up and frowned, she bite off the end of the slice and chewed as she searched her memory.

"Ah... last time I knew my age, I was eight... it's been quite awhile since then... when you're alone, days become a sequence, not something you bother to keep track." Gabby's jaw dropped slightly.

"You mean you don't even know how old you are?" Teeg shook her head.

"I do not see a point in knowing. It is a number assigned to a person to signify the length of their time alive, but not of what they have done in that time." Gabby looked at Teeg with an expression of surprise. Teeg looked at her and smiled sheepishly. "Martial Arts and Philosophy go hand in hand." She said. Gabby laughed and called her a "Warrior Poet."

* * *

Felling better now that food was in her system, as well as a draught of honeyed fruit juice with ground willow bark mixed in, Teeg was up and running around feeling much like her old self.

"Ah. Doing chores I see." Phant said walking up behind her. Teeg smiled at him over her shoulder and heaved a bale of long grass and grain into the bull's pen before feeding and milking the cows. With food still in the pig's trough from before, Teeg hefted the large terracotta pots to take to the kitchens to pasteurize and store in the cold rooms buried under the kitchen before she did anything with them.

"If I do not milk the cows routinely, they tend to get sores and infections in their udders." She said noncommittally as she struggled to carry more than one pot at a time.

"Here, let me." Phant said stepping forward to take one of the large heavy pots from her. "I was thinking after your chores were finished, if you'd perhaps care to spar with me? I am well aware of your previous training and wish to help you adapt in your technique." He said diplomatically, trying to word his request so that she wasn't offended, from what Finn and Swoop had said she seemed highly upset that she had been defeated in a simple spar. However, both Phant and Finn told Swoop that he should have stated his analysis more tactfully. Saying that to anyone would have lead to hurt, emotionally _and_ egotistically.

However, Teeg was no fool, she knew what he was getting at, and yes, she wasn't, as Casey would say, "A joyous camp-dweller" –or something close to that, but logically she also had to yield to his point. If he had something to teach her, she was duty bound to learn it. Her affront at her glaring deficiency being stated publicly and her begrudgingly admitted inability to remedy it was tempered by her willingness to agree: there was only so much one could do on their own. The bruising on her hind-quarters and the fading bruises and scrapes from Kraken were enough of a so called "reality check" -she believe the expression was.

"That would be... greatly appreciated."

* * *

"Okay, stop. Teeg, you had many openings, and yet you followed through with the block. Try thinking of ways to counter your opponent instead of merely following routine." Teeg stepped back and huffed in irritation. "Begin again." Teeg waited for him to attack and blocked his kick. He never waited for her to attack. She was always forced on defense. Teeg felt her bottom lip push out as her mood increased.

"Don't pout and glare sullenly, think of other ways to fight, you have an endless range of possibilities in each moment, don't be so clinical."

"I do not understand what you are saying!" She said breaking from the spar to stomp her foot in punctuation, her fists clenched and her eyes shut. Phant relaxed from his stance and sighed.

"So much potential and not a damned idea what to do with it." He muttered. Teeg broke her mood long enough to be curious about his choice in words.

"I am most curious as to what dams have to do with my thoughts." Phant was startled enough to briefly drop his thoughts on how to teach her what she wasn't undertsanding.

"Dams? OH! Ah... never mind, forget I said anything." Teeg resumed her pouting and crossed her arms, looking much like a child scolded. Phant turned about, his hands folded behind his back as he searched his mind for a way to get the point across to her. Swoop and Finn wouldn't be back for awhile, and it wouldn't be till next week that the rangers were available, and though Gabby was a Pai Zhuq, she was not formally trained in Martial Arts, choosing to use her meager training to further her dancing career. Perhaps Jarrod?

* * *

As it turned out Jarrod was busy with grief and trauma councilors, and anyone else he could think of was busy with other duties. However, Phant was able to clarify what her problem was during lunch, when they had all gathered in the Loft upstairs of the Jungle Karma Pizza restaurant, and the group decided that if she was able to watch a spar she'd be able to understand. Since RJ couldn't leave the store, and Teeg made noises about wanting Pizza, it made sense to gather there and work on finding Kraken and how to go about getting Teeg up to par in her combat abilities.

"So right after lunch we show Teeg how a real spar looks-" The frantic sound of someone pounding up the metal stairs to the loft interrupted the group. RJ got up in worry as the young woman appeared on the steps, panting, her dark blonde hair all over the place. She was dressed in a green Ao Dai, with the standard black pants of the Pai Zhua and a White Lab Coat over the whole affair denouncing her status as a doctor.

"Meg, what's wrong? You look like you ran all the way here from the hospital and back several times." RJ said handing her his cup of water. She gratefully downed it before panting out her gasped response.

"Council declared emergency. All communication to be done in person. Had to run around town all day. Hospital. Now. No arguments." She said before turning to go down the stairs. RJ looked confused but gestured for them to follow anyways.

* * *

"So let me get this straight. Kraken, the mythological giant squid-thing of sea-lore, is based off of this ancient beast-lord who calls himself Kraken, _God of the Sea_, and he's loose. Or rather his spirit is."

"Exactamundo." RJ said as they all hurried through the hallways of the Hospital, ignoring the cries of people dodging out of the way as they made their way to the Restricted Wing.

"I was charged to guard him... but I was not trained enough and suffered a humiliating defeat at his... ghostly tentacles?" Teeg admitted. Meg looked at the woman out of the corner of her eye.

"You're Teeg? You've caused quite a stir around here. Everyone's talking about the new temple discovered. Anyways, don't feel bad, you did your best, and now all that's left is to try again." Meg spoke, mentally noting that she was getting too good at that cheery pep talk stuff, before turning her attention to the guards at the end of the hallway. She flashed her badge, she usually kept tucked in her medical-coat pocket, and called out that the group was with her. The guards almost imperceptibly relaxed, letting Meg know they were not going to cause problems. Once inside the doorways, Meg gestured for the group to put the overly large off blue scrubs on over their clothes, and to put covers over their shoes hair and mouth. Her herself grabbed a pair of rubber gloves and a facial mask before securing her own loosely tied hair into a hair cap and stepping through the decontamination spray in the doorway leading into the sterile ward.

"As of last night twelve small rural villages have been wiped out by a mysterious "plague". The Council of Elders have contacted the world governments and told them that the mysterious deaths have been caused by a virus that we, as Pai Zhuq, seem to be immune to. This is obviously a lie to keep them happy and out of our way as we do clean up. They have been informed to keep the general public unknowing, to avoid mass hysteria." Meg walked down a hallway to a room labeled "Morgue" in bold metallic letters above the white doorway. She buttoned her coat up to avoid getting her clothes dirty and waved the group to follow her into the room. "The only thing the villages themselves have in common was that they were all near a source of water. All symptoms have been reported as the same. Outwardly they appear to be drowning victims, save for physical marks on them like they were grasped by something. However, internally they, well..." She pulled out one of the cadavers from the cold containment and peeled back the sheet to reveal an corpse already autopsied. The group gasped in revulsion and looked away. "Internally, they are mummified." The man's face and skin had the sickly bloated paleness of a drowned body. The group avoided looking at the gaping hole where his chest should have been.

Swoop, who was blind and therefore saved from the sight, was trying not to breathe in the fumes of formaldehyde and dead flesh. His jaw clenched against the bile he had to swallow back.

"Are there any survivors?" Finn asked covering his mouth, slightly worried his lunch might come back up. Meg looked at him as she threw the sheet back over the body.

"A handful, all Pai Zhua... But... there's... I..." She drew off with an exasperated sigh. "I can't even begin to understand how or why, but their spirit animals have been separated from their bodies and well... turned into _real_ animals." There was a pause as she pushed the slab and body back into the locker and locked the door back up.

"That's impossible..."

"No, not scientifically speaking... but the sheer amount of energy it would require to transform electronic particles into flesh is mind-blowing, and our physicists are trying like hell to revert them. But in the mean time my ward's been turned into a zoo for the sick." There was a moment of absolute quiet while Meg peeled off her gloves and sterilized her hands. The group minus Teeg all followed her out.

"As you can see, and smell..."

* * *

Teeg stared at the cool metal of the lockers in cold horror... she had never seen dead humans before. She swallowed the bile that kept climbing in her throat as she stared, a cold unease yanking her way from the lockers, but only doing its part to keep her rooted in place, staring at the cold metal lockers.

"First time seeing a cadaver?" Teeg jumped and turned on the doctor-woman. Her tired green-grey eyes peered at Teeg with an understanding of what was going on in her head. "I felt the same way when they shunted me here. Performing Autopsies on men women and children alike hoping for some definitive clue as to how to figure out someway to counteract the severe dehydration and bloating, whenever I'm not personally attending to the handful of live patients I currently have. After a while you just... become numb to it. They become a jumble of fleshy of medical terms." She looked at Teeg as the woman turned back with wide frightened eyes to the body locker. "Come on hun. Let's get out of here, my shifts finally over and we're taking the party to my apartment." She wrapped her arm around Teeg's thin shoulders and let her out of the room and through the sanitation hallway out into the rest of the hospital.

* * *

"How long where you on shift for?!" RJ cried as they all made their way into her apartment.

"I told you already, ninety-six hours. Yelling is _not_ going to change that number."

"But-but... that's insane!"

"I am the _only_ personnel the Council of Elders wants dealing with this. No one else is to know about this, no one knows why the Council has declared a state of emergency, and I am to turn _every_ scrap of detail over to the council." She muttered as she dug about her pockets for her keys, that was the song of her life... disappoint the people she cared about, take a job she never really wanted in the first place, work herself to death, go home, repeat process until committed to the asylum ward. Her stomach rumbled to let her know she'd been without food for far too long. Theo, who was closest heard the noise and scoffed disbelievingly

"You... you deal with that sight everyday and yet you can still eat?" Meg shrugged tiredly.

"After the first week or so when the bodies started coming-in in droves, yeah, I couldn't eat or sleep. After a while..." She shrugged again and got the door open.

The apartment was large and largely unfurnished. A few things decorated the walls or were left leaning on them, as if they were only going to be there for a short-while even though it was obvious the owner didn't intend to complete her task of decorating.

"Half-assed, just like you Meg." Dom joked weekly, trying not to feel out of place in the glaringly white walled apartment.

"I bought this place a week before the Council had me take over the entire ward I currently reside in most weeks, this is probably the third of fourth time I've been here in over a month." She stepped over a paint can from her abandoned painting project; it was not completely dry and unsalvageable. The window she left cracked venting the fumes out.

"Jeeze Meg, this is depressing..." RJ said as he tapped a paint can with his foot and frowned when the green paint within didn't even move.

"Well sorry, I've been busy performing autopsies on the dead and taking care of the living." RJ held up his hands to ward off the verbal onslaught.

"Wasn't blaming you, just saying." The living room was somewhat more hospitable being that the painting had actually started in there, so at least there were random streaks of varying greens to break up the oppressive white.

"Beanbags!" Dom and RJ cried before hurtling to the largest one that sat in front of the neglected TV. Meg let a tired smile ease her expression as she walked over to the two and took her own place in between RJ and Dom.

"Forgive me if I pass out, I'm really tired." She yawned before reclining back into the bag-furniture. The group either scrambled to claim the other bean-bags -in Theo, Lily, Teeg and Casey case- or got chairs out of the dining room/kitchen to sit on.

"So, any clues as to why Kraken's been draining the fluids out of his victims? Or why the animal spirits have turned corporal?" Finn asked getting straight to business.

"Not a damned clue... I mean if I understood exactly what type of species a kraken was maybe I'd be able to produce a counter-measure..." The green wearing female said rubbing her face and sinking further into the furniture, letting the rest of the sentence hang. She sunk into a mini doze as she listened to the group talk back and forth. The distant chiming of the neighbor's clock through the apartment walls just barely reached her ears, but still jerked her awake from her impending slumber. She looked around blearily before her sight landed on Teeg, curled up on a beanbag chair, obviously having a nightmare.

"Hey, not to derail the conversation, but she's not looking hot over there." Casey reached over and gently shook the woman awake, causing her to jerk and look around as if she was still caught partially in her bad dreams.

"Hey are you okay?"

"Dead bodies..." She whimpered curling up into a small ball on the seat. Meg stretched her lips in an expression reading something kindred to 'Of course'. After a few moments of attempting to extract herself from the overly plush bag she, with a helpful shove from Dom and RJ, managed to get up and wobbled slightly before walking to her bathroom and coming back with a small bottle she handed to Finn.

"Alright, take her home and get her really comfy, pick up dinner along the way, whatever she wants and make sure it's a large portion and she eats every bite, then give her one pill with two glasses of water for the night. These should help with the dreams, but I want someone staying in her room to keep an eye on her, and if she starts reacting to the medicine negatively, bring her back here immediately." There was a shift before RJ spoke up.

"The temple is sealed off at night... those on the temple grounds can't leave."

"Really? Shit... alright then... Uh... well I do have some guest rooms here..."

"I will be alright; I do not wish to take any medicine, and would rather return to the temple soon, I am behind in my chores..." Meg eyed her.

"Are you sure? You'll most likely have nightmares tonight until you can get over today." Teeg nodded and she got out of the beanbag chair and crossed her arms over her chest protectively. Meg bit her lip; it was apparent that Teeg was very attached to her temple and would probably not relinquish proprietary status without a fight. Meg took the bottle from Finn's offering hand and put it on the counter for the moment.

"Alright then,. It was a pleasure meeting you Teeg, and it was nice seeing you again RJ, Dom. But I'm afraid I must kick you all out." She said letting her tiredness level over her again like a thick black pitch. She bowed to Finn and Phant and turned to head into her barely used bedroom. The others raised their eyebrows at the slight she dealt Swoop by not acknowledging him.

"You two _still_ not on speaking terms?" RJ asked lightly. Swoop merely tilted his face away without saying a word. RJ rolled his eyes, knowing a hopeless cause when he saw one, and relented to let the man keep his silence. "Just don't let her beat you up too terribly bad." RJ cautioned as he shut the door behind the leaving group, letting the Bat Master stay behind where he felt he needed to.

* * *

There were two things keeping Meg from giving into the sweet numbness of sleep. A conditioning left to her from her childhood and adolescence living in a house-dorm with RJ and Dom, and her training with one of the reasons she was getting crankier by the minute.

_Never rest for a period of time exceeding thirty minutes without eating. _Master Swoop had always cautioned her. The exceedingly active lifestyle of the Pai Zhua coupled with an increased metabolism due to their peculiar physiology demanded that in order to reserve enough body fat to be healthy, one must consume food at any time when ones metabolism/activity levels were about to decrease. Simply put, after half an hour of inactivity a person's metabolism will decrease naturally. In order to gain appropriate weight, one must consume calories when they are at rest. Going to bed without supper was guaranteeing hunger pains in the morning. At least for her at any rate.

Finally irritation broke her last nerve and she threw the sheet off and headded into the living room, not caring if she was in her underwear and shirt. The man was blind, and he was in _her_ house, she could dress as she so chose to here.

* * *

She was in that horrible room again; in front of the thing she kept the body in. The hospital was deserted; even through the sanitation hallway she could feel the absence of life.

"_Your fault_"A deadly hiss of a voice drifted from the metal door that housed to dead man she'd seen earlier.

A horror filled scream made her jump as the panel moved like the _thing_ inside was alive and trying to get out. Soon all of the doors started rattled like there were things behind them pounding at the square doors as screams filled the room. Then they all stopped in one second and the doors flew open, shooting the pallets out with their sheet covered contents. By an immaterial wind the sheets lifted off their mangled owners. Teeg, now shaking and too terrified to do much more than cry, peered at them as once again the whisper "_Your fault_" echoed in her ears alone.

In synch, all the corpses' eyes snapped open. Another heart beat before they all moved, sitting up in one movement and turning to look at her.

"_Your fault_" They began to get up, all of them bloated blue-grey flesh with gaping holes where their chest should been revealing the dried mummified flesh where their organs once rested.

"_Your fault..._" They all murmured advancing. She backed up till her back hit a cart piled with thin, short, metal blades. Still they advanced on her.

"_Your fault._" They insisted reaching for her, behind her, grabbing her hair, her clothes, the blades.

"_YOUR FAULT!_" They roared as she screamed when the blades descended on her...

Teeg sat up panting as the ghost-memory of the blades carving into her still played on her skin. She shivered and drew her knees up to her chest. There would be no more sleep tonight. She wished she hadn't been so insistent on being alone, that she hadn't insisted against that dreamless medicine.

* * *

Not that she found the whole thing terribly romantic, but the gesture was _touching_. Swoop had ordered Mexican food, and had gotten two plates and silverware out for them both and was waiting for her to venture out of her room to join him.

"I believe it's time we talked." Meg arched an eyebrow at the statement.

* * *

And for those of you reading this and scratching your heads over what an Ao Dai is. I saved you a google because I had to look it up myself.

An Ao Dai is the most common form of dress in Vietnam. It is a long dress-tunic, somewhat like the Chinese dresses popular with fashion today, that comes down to the hips and splits into flaps in the front and back, and is worn with either a long floor length skirt or a pair of loose pants. I think, if I remember correctly, Master Mao wore the male version of an Ao Dai.

There is more information out there about the different types and the names of them and the time periods they were from etc., but you'll have to google that up yourself if your that curious.

Anyways, review please!!


	5. Chapter 5

Well, we're on chapter 5 already. Read and Review please.

* * *

Meg jerked awake to the loud knocking on her door. Grumbling she threw her covers off, yawned sleepily, stretched, and dug around her messy bedroom floor for a pair of PJ bottoms. Her feet popped and cracked as they flattened out under the pressure of her bodyweight. The knocking continued as she wandered half-drifting to the source of the noise.

"I'm coming! I'm coming. Hold your fucking horses." She protested as she yanked the door open to reveal RJ.

"Yes?"

"Nice black-eye you gave Swoop, he's furious and refuses to talk to anyone."

"He deserved it."

"So you've said." RJ pushed passed her. "I've brought breakfast, go make coffee." He said holding up the bag.

Far too used to this than she could angry about, the female wandered to the kitchen/dining room/living room area and grabbed two plates and the necessary silverware and started the coffeepot before she sat next to RJ on the big bean-bag couch. He pulled open the large bag to reveal Styrofoam boxes holding Biscuits and Gravy, Bacon, Scrambled Eggs, and Blueberry Pancakes with a small pour bottle of blueberry syrup.

"Homemade? Takeout?" She offered RJ a plate and a fork.

"Homemade. Wanna talk about it?" He grabbed his plate and began piling food up.

"What exactly?" She helped herself to a few biscuits and bacon first.

"Well, let's start with why you're mad at Master Swoop. What happened? You two were really close and then... you wouldn't even acknowledge each other's existence." Meg forked a bite of her gravy covered biscuit in her mouth and swallowed slowly in thought.

"It was stupid really, the reason we started fighting. He didn't approve of my deciding to become a Doctor instead of a Master. And we got into an argument about that... and it escalated, and in the end... we both said things that shouldn't have." RJ put his fork down.

"That explains a lot, you know how he feels about the Pai Zhua and being a Master." Meg sucked in a deep breath.

"I know." She said releasing that breath. "But I wish he'd be more supportive of my decisions. He knows I didn't become a doctor to spite him. He _should_ know."

"I know, I know. And you do a great contribution to the Pai Zhuq society. _I_ certainly couldn't be in that place all day and still be able to go back the next day. But... well..." RJ drew off. Meg smiled, knowing what he was implying.

"How pissed do you think he is at me?"

"Swoop? Well I'd watch my back around him for a while." Meg laughed.

* * *

The instant she felt people on the temple grounds Teeg shot up out of her room and ran down to their location.

"What happened?" She asked, coming to a halt before the group of men. Finn snickered and Phant began to chuckle as Swoop crossed his arms over his chest irritated.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Meg thumped him good." Swoop glared at Finn. Not only was his eye swollen shut, but the face around it was puffy and bruised. Even hidden by his broad black glasses she could tell he was in pain.

"I thought she was a healer... why did she injure Master Swoop?" There were coughs and shuffling about as Swoop sank into a more furious aura.

"Later. But for now, we'll let you get to your chores and then onto sparring."

"I think I can make an herb compound that should reduce the swelling and coloration and ease the pain." She couldn't take her eyes off the puffy black-bruise. Swoop smiled gratefully, and Teeg felt her heart double beat for a moment.

_Is there anyone you you're... attracted to?_ Gabby's words echoed in her ears.

_Ridiculous. He just has... a nice smile that is all._

The herbs needed were best fresh, so Teeg took a detour from the kitchens to her herb gardens and began pulling the needed plants out. She tugged her shirt out into a makeshift basket and held the plants, dirt root and all in her shirt as she led the men to the kitchen.

* * *

With Phant and Swoop outside discussing the particulars of what they plan to do, Finn was inside the kitchen trying to make small talk.

"Well, what happened back then, exactly, is something between Master Swoop and Meg, but the common details are that Meg told Master Swoop she had been accepted into the apprenticeship of the hospital, and he was upset, they got into an argument about her wasting her talent and then they just never spoke to each other again. Then of course last night Swoop tried to make peace and things were going well from what he said till he said something that wasn't taken well and things got bad, really bad. She decked him and told him to never come near her again." Teeg listened to Finn's explanation as she prepped the ingredients before adding it to her mortar and pestle to mash into a paste.

"Should not she get reprimanded for hitting a Master unwarranted?" Finn laughed.

"Usually no Master would have taken that, except, Swoop really does care about her, and was too hurt to do anything about her disrespect, and besides she's well loved at the hospital, possibly in line for taking it over after she's done with this current assignment, and the council relies heavily on her." Finn leaned down to say something quietly to her, not aware of the little squeak she gave off or of her posture stiffening. "Between you and I, I sympathize with Swoop, but as RJ and the rangers taught me, you can't make decisions for others." His dark brown eyes peered into her own wide blue-gray ones in mirth. Her chest and head felt like someone had poured cherry soda in her and shook her up. She couldn't help but return his smile.

* * *

Lily stood behind the counter at JKP bored out of her mind. She drummed her fingers on the counter, her nails going "tap taptap, tap taptap" counter. Finally a jingle from the bell atop the door alerted a customer. The yellow ranger instantly perked up.

"Welcome to JKP! May I take you order?" She chirped. The man, dressed in generic off teal scrubs tapped the toe of his white sneakers against the floor as he stood back to read the whole menu.

"Uh... yeah okay... I'll have one personal cheese and garlic pizza with extra cheese and dipping ranch and crushed red pepper flakes on the side and a medium Coke, and a super deluxe large RJ special with red pepper flakes, garlic powder, dipping ranch, and all that on the side, with four two liters of Pepsi, Coke, Mountain Dew and Orange Soda to go."

"That'll be... 30.39. And your order will be ready shortly." The Man looked around to see if there was anyone else around then stuck out his hand and wiggled his fingers. Lily looked at him bizarrely.

"What are you...?"

"Secret handshake, the Council issued that all Pai Zhua to use as identification during the State of Emergency, the tall blonde guy who served me last time told me about it, took me forever to get it right. I need the handshake to get my discount." Lily paused and inhaled through her nose briefly before fluttering her eyes up in irritation and turning to face the doors to the kitchen.

She turned back to the man and smiled sweetly. "You get the discount, but there is no secret handshake, the blonde guy was messing with you, I'm dreadfully sorry." The guy kinda sagged a bit but smiled anyways.

"Thanks, I feel like an idiot, but at least I don't have to do that ridiculous handshake anymore."

"With your discount, the total comes to 23. 49." The guy smiled and handed over a twenty and a five.

"Keep the change." Lily rang the total up and listened for the receipt being printed in the kitchens. The guy smiled and shuffled to a seat near the counter and drummed his thumbs on the table to pass the time. Lily slouched back against the counter waiting for the pizza to be finished.

When the ding of the pizzas being done sounded to her, she grabbed the pizza board and carefully opened the ovens to remove the food. For a second she balanced the pizza on the end of the large wooden spatula as she dug out a to go box out form underneath the counter. With a quick flip of her wrist the box assembled itself and in slid the larger pizza into the box. She quickly grabbed the smaller personal size box and assembled that before pulling out the cheese and garlic pizza out and into the box. Quickly Lily stuffed the ranch dipping cartons in the corners and the pepper and garlic powder of the remaining corners of both boxes and put them both in a bag before triple bagging the four liters and filling the medium coke out of the soda fountain she put all of the items on the counter and called out that the man's order was ready.

"Thanks." The guy took his order and left.

* * *

Meg was not a happy camper. It was supposed to be her week off; she was starting on her home improvements again before she permanently lost her safety deposit. _She had gotten one streak of paint on her wall before The Phone went off._ And not any phone, not her home phone or her personal phone, NOOO it was the phone that signified "I know it's you week off but you have to come into work anyways." The demon: _work phone_. She folded her pizza slice in half and dunked it in the ranch before biting the dipped part and chewing. She propped her feet up on her desk as she random clicked the mouse on her computer, checking her email and such. A knock on her door turned her attention from the email form Dom about the "handshake" the Elders wanted to "enforce" to a delivery man in a denim blue uniform.

"Yes?"

"You a... Doctor Byrd? Huh that French or something?"

"Yes I'm Doctor Byrd. Can I help you?" The man handed over a clip board before retreating. Her eyebrows shot up as her jaw dropped in surprise. Quickly she slid out from around her desk and rushed into the main ward lobby where a giant tank of nearly pitch black water. Even from this distance she could tell it was cold, the bullet proof plexiglass fronting over in a thin sheen of ice. Meg walked over to the glass and whipped off the layer of frost to peer into the aquarium.

WHUMP.

Meg shot back as what looked like a fish bred with a mutant-octopus launched it's self to the glass, a gaping maw filled with teeth vissible, and a barbed tongue like thing rapidly darting out to hit the side of the aquarium.

"Ugly little fuckers aren't they?" Meg turned around and bowed to the old man.

"Elder."

"An Icebreaker heading up to the arctic circle to break up the icebergs before they drift into shipping lanes found these things. Sadly the crew died as the adults dragged everyone off the ship to eat them. But they managed to lock these Infant Kraken in a storage tank. Video surveillance showed the adult's tentacles were about as thick as a Buick, and we've estimated that from tip to tip an Adult Kraken was easily around five-hundred plus feet big. That's two hundred or so feet bigger than the largest marine mammal known of." Meg tried to envision just how big that was comparatively. But seeing as how her last trip to SeaWorld she complained, very loudly, the place smelled like "poopy" –complete with the pigtails, missing front teeth, and Disney Princess backpack containing a Barbie-doll, a coloring book, and thee crayons, two of which were broke-. Her idea of what marine animals were like was limited to what she read or saw on TV; or ordered at her local sushi-bar.

The Kraken-baby had left the side of the aquarium it was attacking once the pseudo-glass frosted over again.

"Alright and how do you expect them to be of any use to me? Other than I do know what a kraken is now."

* * *

Kraken floated with his beloved pets at the bottom of the ocean under the ice sheets at the northern most point in the world. He floated their waiting, watching, planning. He knew the Pai Zhua were hunting him. With five villages wiped out in his particular style, they couldn't not know of his reemergence into the modern world. All that was left for him was to wait here, were they couldn't touch him, and plan out their demise. But he couldn't remain forever, even with the changes he had made to his new body; this pathetic human shell couldn't survive here much longer, its lungs craved air and its limbs warmth. He grinned as his beautiful Devil Fish swam about him, their tentacles grazing his transformed body with the gentlest of caresses.

Soon it would be time to feed again, and this time he'll go for Ocean Bluff.

* * *

END. Remember review please!


	6. Chapter 6

Alright, so I try to post every Thursday. But sometimes the Literary Gods just throw a wrench in your plans.So this time, you get a chapter on Saturday.But next week you'll get it back on the usual.

Enjoy!

* * *

Meg was taking the week off, finally. After being robbed of her last "week off" Meg left explicit instructions to be followed in the event of an emergency in her absence and faxed it to both the hospital and the Council of Elders. It read: _Tuck head firmly between knees and kiss ass goodbye._ About ten minutes later her phones were ringing with angry bosses and Elders. And a few laughing heartily and wishing her a good week off.

"There!" She finished the final coat of paint on the hallway and dropped the paintbrush back into the can of paint, not caring if she got splattered. Next she would do the "tarnished gold" paint onto the decals and the hallway would be completed. Her phone rang in her pocket.

Careful not to smear paint on her cell Meg gingerly flipped it open and pressed it lightly to her ear.

"Hello?"

"_Hey_." RJ's voice came from the other end of the line. "_What are you up to on this beautiful morning?_"

"Finishing painting the hallway. Next is the living room, then the guest rooms, then I'm choosing swatches for the bathrooms and my bedroom."

"_Sounds fun. So you're off work this week then I take it. Anyways I called because I heard you got a special unique pet for your new ward the other day._"

"Six infant krakens. And let me tell you blood thirsty little bastards they are, they nearly killed several interns, and succeeded to kill anything else introduced to that tank. BUUTTT, and this is a very big one, I now know what happened to those people thanks to watching those little demons' feeding habits. You know, I can "mysteriously loose one" if you'd like an unusual and gruesome pet."

"_Pass... what do they eat anyways?_"

"The liquids from innards of its victim. It uses it's tentacles to grasp a victim till they drown. Then it pries open the mouth and its barbed tongue shoots out and down the throat to the stomach and injects the corpse with a highly toxic enzyme that decomposes and dries out the internal organs and flesh of the body, allowing the kraken to drink the juices that are dried out of the corpse. Meanwhile the lining on the underside of your skin prevents the enzyme from drying the skin out, which is why the victims always appear bloated and water logged, but are mummified internally."

"..._And I don't think I'll be having the soup today... or for a while. Any idea why Pai Zhua seem to be able to survive? Or why their spirits are turned into living animals?_"

"One mystery at a time my friend. Currently, I'm working on what exactly that enzyme is and how to use it against them. But so far from what I can tell these things are just mindless killing machines, they are _highly_ poisonous, they can inject up to thirteen kinds of toxins and poisons form various glands in their bodies, _and_ they can go on land for short periods of time."

"_What keeps them form attacking humans regularly, aside from recently that is._"

"They are highly photophobic, and heat-intolerant. It's probably that Kraken, with a capital K, is using his water manipulation abilities to some how shield them from the heat and light, maybe by freezing the rivers after flooding them and letting them hide under the ice."

"_Shit, life just doesn't want to be nice does it?_"

"Does it help any to warn you that they are insanely strong, adults are potentially larger than a large freight-ship, and probably self-regenerating?"

"_No._" Meg laughed.

"Alright, I'll let you go before I rain on your parade any more."

"_Yeah, I'll go spread the good news to everyone to let them know what we're up against._"

"Yeah, hey RJ? If you're going to go up against Kraken... be careful, all of you, even the Bat Bastard. And you can tell him I said that too. Just... really... be careful." There was a pause as she listened to RJ swallow before he replied.

"_Don't worry, I have no intentions of leaving this incarnation any time soon, after all I still have a pizza parlor to pay off and I still have to patch things up between you and Swoop, and there are still many pizza combos left to try..._" Meg laughed again.

"Alright, and I'll hold you to all that. Bye RJ."

"_Yeah... Hey... keep an eye on Fran and JKP for me while I'm gone._"

"You didn't even need to ask."

* * *

The Ranger's were out with Teeg at her temple, it was just Fran and RJ and it was one of those odd dead days.

"Hey Fran... I... I need to talk to you up in the loft." Fran looked over to her boss and friend and nodded, jogging up the steps after the man.

RJ led her over to the bar where he had her take a seat and fished her out a drink from the fridge, he nervously cracked his own cola.

"I'm going to hire more staff, and I'm going to put you in charge of that." Fran's eyes lit up with pleasure before her expression changed to one of suspicion.

"Wait, what do you mean more staff? Is this a ranger thing, cause I thought you guys were through with that."

"No, unfortunately, the power decided to tap us again. See... well... uh..." RJ sighed and sagged a little. "Remember when we were talking about the Overlords? Remember Jellica, the Sea Overlord? Well she and the other's were small potatoes compared to this. About... well... a hell of a long time ago, before Dai Shi and the Beast Wars, there were these beings called The Beast Gods, and one in particular was really bad. His name was Kraken the Beast God of The Water. And he was as nasty as they come; he _loved_ to torture humans and create havoc and misery where ever he was.

"So one day people started to figure out how to drive him and his kind, the other Kraken-kind, away and so finally he wound up not too far from here. Where a band of Pai Zhua warriors had hunted him down and after many years they managed to defeat him by separating his immortal soul/spirit from his self-regenerating body. They destroyed his body and imprisoned his soul in a large crystal and appointed a guardian to watch over the temple, and for millennia he was kept imprisoned, until just recently he escaped and is feeding on humans once more." Fran's hand found her mouth in horror at the connections forming in her head.

"The... the villages hit by that mysterious illness... they were really..."

"Yes..."

"And you... you're going to fight that... god monster?"

"We have no choice; the current guardian isn't capable of fighting him on her own. He's got to be stopped. So... we are going to be absent a lot... and Fran... if anything happens to me... you will inherit JKP, and you'll have the Pai Zhua backing you as my benefactor."

"But- No! I can't! What about the others? Shouldn't they...?"

"Fran! If I don't make it, it's to be assumed they won't either, and if they do, the Pai Zhuq will take care of them." She felt sick. "So in the mean time, you are to hire part time workers to fill-in our absences, and business goes as usual. Understand?" RJ barked. Fran jumped slightly and nodded.

"Good, now... I'll try to catch you around sometime." RJ said awkwardly before parting off, leaving the poor girl to worry herself even sicker then she currently was.

* * *

RJ jogged up the steps and through the temple, stopping only to stare at the ponds, as if there was a large tentacle-beast lurking in the depths. Perhaps the temple wasn't really that safe. He left the pools of water, keeping an eye and ear out for water displacement, cautiously, slightly afraid to turn his back to the water.

"Hey guys, bad news I'm afraid. Meg was able to get a hold of live krakens and study them. Not good, not good at all." RJ called out to the group. The spar that had been going on paused to give the purple wearing man their full attention. "Well, firstly, Meg's off this week so any more info won't be till next week, and secondly, we're up against what's possibly nature's perfect killing machine. They can walk on land -I assume they have adaptable lungs, they're insanely poisonous, immensely strong, potentially gigantic, incredibly foul tempered, and their preferred food is Human.. We have no idea as of yet as to why Pai Zhua seem to survive or as to why their spirit animals are turned flesh."

"Is there any good news?" Theo asked, his stunned expression on display.

"Meg will be keeping an eye on JKP and Fran will be hiring temporary workers to cover our shifts so we can devote all of our time to training, so it'd be a good idea to head back sometime later and pack for an extended stay here, With Teeg's agreement of course." Teeg nodded, trying not to show her happiness about guests.

"Are these things really that bad?" Dom asked.

"I'd say so. Meg listed off a whole speech about their abilities. Nasty things." RJ shuddered. Normally he believed in a fair chance for all creatures. But from the sounds of these things... RJ wouldn't loose any sleep if these things were wiped off the face of the earth.

"Well, I say we need to get practicing." Casey said. There was a nod from the group before divided up into pairs.

* * *

The news was depressing in that "I know what's really going on but can't tell you" kind of way. Both Meg and Fran sat in the JKP loft watching news cover on the "mysterious disease".

"I wonder how long till the kraken start attacking larger cities?" Fran hugged the pillow she had grabbed closer to her body as the news station continued it's around the clock coverage of what was being called the "Boongie Sickness", after the first village it struck. Details about what exactly the "illness" was, it's symptoms, and any other information was being kept strictly secret, "For the public's general health, and to prevent mass hysteria." It did more damage than good. But one generally good thing is that the "disease" scared people so bad that many of them were moving as far away from water as possible. Except that those "waterless" regions were now becoming over populated and running out of resources.

"_Next Up: Governments around the world are working tirelessly on a vaccine for this mysterious illness, but with no reported success. Are our Governments really doing all they can? Then: Many websites are claiming to list the symptoms of Boongie Sickness and ways to cure them. But are these sites genuine? Find out more, but now here's the President's statement on the rumors that have been floating around about this strange illness..._"

Meg muted the TV as a man dressed in an immaculate, crisp, blue suit came on the screen and began to talk as if he actually knew what was going on.

"Never liked that jackass." She grumbled.

"I don't get it, why does the Pai Zhuq have to lie about this? Why can't we bring in the governments of the world to help?" Meg chuckled humorlessly.

"For their protection. And ours. See if we brought in the governments, there'd be no way they could cover all this, and then there'd be meetings and Animal Rights Activists would insist the Krakens are beautiful misunderstood creatures, when in fact they're not, they are ugly dangerous monsters that eat humans as their primary diet, meanwhile the governments would insist on going in and bombing the ice caps. So, while animal rights activists and ecologists and marine biologists and governments and zoologists and human rights activists would argue and bicker about what to do with these things, more people would die.

"So while they argue about that, the existence of the Pai Zhua may very well be revealed in association with Kraken –which would cause undue panic since most people aren't really accepting of our... differences. And all it would take was one pair of loose lips pressured into naming a responsible party." Fran's eyes widened as the whole scenario played out in her mind in fast forward.

"So...It's entirely up to the rangers?"

"Not entirely, they have the Pai Zhua nation."

* * *

Meg rubbed her eyes as she watched the chemical compound chains rearrange themselves on her desk top in an attempt at discovering a counter measure against the poisons of the kraken.

There was a commotion right outside her ward. The woman got up from behind her desk, after pausing the chemical analysis program, and went to see what the problem was.

"I know there's animals back there!" A man shouted red faced at one of the guards outside the door. Meg walked out the door and stood by the security guards.

"Can I help you?" The man turned to look at the Green wearing Doctor.

"Are you Dr. Meg Byrd?" Meg blinked.

"Yes."

"I am Mike Schmidt of the International Animal Rights and Protection Organization, and I am placing you under Citizen's Arrest for Cruelty to Animals." He even dug out a pair of handcuffs from his fanny pack.

"The I.A.R.P.O? Aren't you guys the dumbasses that nearly killed an entire ecosystem, brought commercial fishing to it's knees _and_ nearly starved an entire third-world country when you kidnapped all of the fish at some international Aquarium and dumped them in the wild thus throwing the entire Mediterranean ecosystem system off balance?" The Man's face colored a brilliant red in both anger an embarrassment.

"We admit that that was a miscalculation on our part. But that doesn't excuse the fact that you have a rare and endangered species in your office, on which you are doing experiments on." Meg turned pale. He couldn't know about the spirit animals could he? Or the Krakens? "Our sources indicate that you have illegally acquired no less than six Architeuthis Squid Infants and are holding them in an isolated tank in your labs and are performing experiments on them." Oh. She heaved an internal sigh of relief. "I have here..." He pulled a folded piece of paper from his fanny pack. "A Warrant here to search your hospital for any and all animals on the premises." He folded out the paper and held it out straight for her to read. Meg took the paper and read it through.

"Ah it looks like you did." The man's face fell.

"D-did?" He turned white as she tore the warrant up into strips of paper. "Y-YOU CAN'T DO THAT!" He shrieked.

"I can and I did, the American Court of Law has no jurisdiction here." She dropped the torn-up remains into his hand before crossing her arms across her chest.

"I-I'll report you!"

"At any rate your Warrant was for Archetoothus Squid Infants, not for other animals, and I assure you we do _not_ have any Architeuthis Squid on the premises. Now please leave." She gestured to two orderlies to "escort" Mr. Schmidt out of the hospital.

"YOU WILL REGRET THIS! THIS IS NOT THE LAST YOU WILL SEE OF ME! I WILL SAVE THOSE ACHITEUTHIS SQUIDS!" He bellowed all through out the corridors as the Orderlies hefted him out. Meg rubbed her face tiredly.

"_That_ will probably come back to bite me in the ass."

And sure enough, the next morning the Ocean Bluff chapter of the I.A.R.P.O. was picketing outside the hospital.

"I've _got_ to start watching what I say."

"Ah, I had a feeling you had _something_ to do with this. Want to tell me exactly how this happened?" Meg turned around and bowed respectfully to the Old Man.

"Elder. Well... Yesterday this man came barging in with a warrant for Architeuthis Squid. And I tore the Warrant up and had the orderlies throw him out. This is my fault. I am deeply regretful." She bowed again. The old man chuckled.

"Ah, well shit happens." Meg couldn't help but chuckle at the expression. "Any how there is work to be done. So let's go." He threaded her arm through his and the two walked in through the crowd, chattering about the weather.

* * *

RJ had to admit that the temple wasn't a very sound place to put up base, considering it was isolated and on the other side of the town from where the waterfront was. But there was no time to lament as the radio news report shrilled in a panic that the ocean front was swelling up and had already engulfed the beach and several hundred feet of city.

"Thankfully I moved all of my belongings into storage." Finn muttered as they all headed out of the temple. Those that had other methods of transportation had been urged to go ahead while the rest caught up in the jeep.

* * *

RJ blinked the blood out of his eyes from a gash on his forehead and looked around. Casey and Dom were held high in the air, being waved about like dolls. Swoop and Theo weren't fairing much better, the instant one of the pair gained an advantage another tentacle was added to the fight. He couldn't see the others. The Purple ranger slammed his heel into the kraken's rather squishy head. The thing roared and retreated back into the water.

"AIM FOR THE HEADS! THEY'RE SENSITIVE THERE!"

"EASIER SAID THAN DONE!" Dom shouted back as the tentacle shook him around before dragging him under water for a moment. He came up in a cloud of blackish tainted water spluttering and coughing. "THEY CUT EASY THOUGHT!" RJ bit back a grin as he charged the oncoming kraken.

* * *

A screech cracked the air before Teeg fell from the sky, landing on her back in the shallow water. A tentacle wrapped itself around her ankle and dragged her into the murky water.

"Does she know how to swim?" Lily asked as she looped the chain of her mace around a small kraken and was using it to hit other krakens. Finn charged past Lily and dove into the water. Phant, who was nursing a broken arm, watched as came up carrying an unconscious Teeg. The other man placed the unconscious woman next to Phant before whipping out his swords and charging with a roar.

* * *

Swoop cried out as a thin tentacle wrapped round his thigh and squeezed till there was a loud crack. He lost his concentration with the pain and dropped down on his side heavy. Another loud crack had him screaming. His arm and leg were throbbing with such pain. Slowly he tried to push himself backwards away from the battle with no real success until he felt RJ drag him back.

"You okay?" The younger man asked huskily, the battle was wearing on him too.

"My arm... and leg... I think they're broken." He gasped through the pain.

"Well just hang on; we'll get you to the hospital." RJ promised before rushing off again.

* * *

Lily cried out as a clear thick quill sunk into her thigh. She pulled it out, and started to feel woozy immediately as her rapid heartbeat pulsed the poison through her body at an immeasurable speed, the ground and the sky became vertical as she fell over unable to move.

"Lily!" She heard Phant shout. She tried to whimper but her throat was frozen.

* * *

Casey had begun to loose consciousness; he could feel that numb pain spreading all over he as slowly his lungs started to demand to breath, regardless that there was no air around him, only water. His vision began to tunnel. He was just so tired. His eyes began to droop in the stinging salt water and finally he gave out just before Dom pulled him out of the water.

* * *

All that was left on their side was Dom and himself. They both were tired; they both were bleeding, bruised, and barely conscious. RJ took his stance and waited for the kraken in the water to strike first.

* * *

Despite his efforts at keeping the water engorged up to the city limits, Kraken could feel the tide change, and even he was powerless to stop it, for now. But in the mean time a retreat was in order, they'd have to feed later, when they were healed from the battle.

"Congratulations... you've managed to save the city... for now." He mused to himself before he left along with his pets.

* * *

"Paging Doctor Smithson, you have a surgery in twenty minutes. Paging Doctor Smithson, you have surgery in twenty." Chimed over the PA system, waking RJ up.

"The hospital?"

"You're awake." He heard Meg's voice sigh in relief.

"Yeah, we lost?" Meg's face appeared in his vision, shaking her head and biting her lip.

"No they left with the tide. The City's safe, and things have been real quiet lately. Whatever you guys did, you gave them quite a wound to go home licking."

"Least I know I don't feel like shit for nothing. How are the others?" Meg tucked his blankets up further around him when she noted his skin start to goose-flesh.

"Still out cold. You, Theo, Casey, Finn, and Dom are the only ones not on life support and/or purposely kept sedated." RJ tried to sit up to get a good look at his team.

"Hold it, your not going to be moving any time soon. You lost a lot of blood."

"And you look like hell, when's the last time you slept? And what about the others? Who's hurt the worst?"

"_Thanks_. Well it's a tie on several levels, Phant had a messy break, but because of his age he'd never heal from it, so we ended up replacing the entire bone in his arm with a titanium replacement. He'll be numb in that arm for the rest of his life. Lily had a paralyzing nerve poison running in her system, thankfully she pulled it out quickly so that the poisoning wasn't worse, she'll recover with little to no side effects. But currently we're keeping her sedated for the pain and her blood's being filtered." Meg paused and took a deep breath. "Your father sprained several joints, but will be fine. Both you and Dom suffer from severe exhaustion, blood loss and bruising. So for a while you both are going to look like something bounced on the road, Casey's been nearly drowned, but he should be fine... And Theo has a concussion and a weeping hairline fracture on his skull." RJ noted she didn't mention Swoop or Teeg.

"Meg..." She started to visibly shake.

"Tee-Teeg broke most of her ribs and punctured her lungs several times... I...I had to peel off her skin and reconstruct her ribs, running wire through them. And then I had to stitch up her lungs. She'll barely have any scarring but she's going to have trouble breathing for a while until the sutures dissolve, and she will have physical therapy to control her breathing since one deep breath could rip her lungs apart. Her- her heart stopped several times... but she'll pull through... we're... _I'm_ thinking of simply keeping her under until the sutures heal up... Sw-Swoop... oh God." Her voice started to become thick with tears. "We almost lost him." She whispered. "He-his the bones were shattered and the muscles crushed, I had to spend _hours_ slicing open his arm and leg, carefully pulling the muscle apart and forcing it to swell, digging through his tissue for bone shards to wire back together, we were missing several pieces. We- I knew they had gotten into his blood stream so we severed the veins to his heart and brain and placed a small filter onto the veins leading in. I-I was cutting into the vein to his heart... the scissors wouldn't go through the vein entirely... I had caught a piece of bone... millimeters away from entering his heart." RJ didn't want her to continue; she was shaking and holding back tears. Clumsily he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him.

"The last thing... I don't want him to die... oh god what if he had? And the last thing I...I'd never forgive myself if my last time with him was fighting about something so fucking stupid." She rambled.

"Shh, he'll be fine, he's a tough guy." RJ murmured. Meg pulled up sniffing and rubbing her eyes.

"How about some pudding from the Cafeteria?" She asked as a distraction. "They have Banana." RJ smiled.

"Sure."

* * *

Once outside the ward she was bombarded by people demanding to know what was going on.

"Ask the Council." She replied tiredly.

"Can't you tell us _anything_?" One rather mouthy nurse sneered. Meg felt the ire rise within her.

"Oi! You lot leave her alone, she under enough stress and aggravation without you all pestering her. Now if you all don't return to your work right this instant, I'll fire the lot of you." Patrick Robinson, The Head of the Hospital, shouted coming down the hallway. Meg smiled tiredly.

"Thanks Pat."

"No worries ducky. Any change in any of your patients?"

"RJ finally awoke. But everyone else is still unconscious, and the victims have not stirred from their comas." He nodded and left after squeezing her shoulder. Meg felt slightly better about the silly term of endearment before she made her way to the cafeteria.

* * *

Meg spotted Fran, passed out over a table, a disposable plate of veggies and Alfredo pushed around in a display of inability to eat. The doctor pulled a tray out of the bin and piled up two cups of banana pudding on it with a coke for her and a rootbeer for RJ and a salad with bacon and avocado sides and Italian dressing for herself. She threw a crumpled ten in the jar that staff used to pay for the food after the cafeteria officially closed before taking her tray and going to wake up the woman asleep in darkened room.

"Fran?" The girl jerked up and blinked, rubbing her eyes.

"Is Dom awake?"

"No, but RJ is." Fran shoved her chair back with a loud sound of metal dragging on linoleum before taking her plate over to a trash bin and tossing it.

* * *

RJ was pleasantly surprised and touched when Fran appeared along with Meg and his Banana Pudding. The man listened to Fran ramble on as he tore off the lid to the cup and dug his spoon in through the whipped cream and crumbled 'Nilla cookie topping. He spooned the sweet treat into his mouth to rid the nasty taste of the nutritional jelly they fed unconscious patients, slightly grimacing as he realized they used sugar substitute in place of real sugar, but relishing the real chunks of banana and vanilla bean shaving in the dessert. He couldn't see Meg, but his acute hearing pin pointed her hovering around Swoop and Teeg, possibly replacing their IV bags. A moment later a rootbeer was rested beside him as Meg reappeared and sat down with a tray in her lap, her own dinner resting in her lap. RJ frowned, for all her activity; she was only eating a salad and a banana pudding. Fran, however, saw it differently.

"Jeeze, that's the seventh time you've eaten today!" Meg let loose hearty chuckle.

"Pai Zhua have very high metabolisms. I need to eat at least two large meals and several small meals to keep my energy up." Fran clicked her tongue in mock anger.

"Sign me up if it means you can eat whatever you want without gaining an ounce." She joked; RJ and Meg arched their eyebrows at each other.

"Oh?"

"Well. Not really, you guys are crazy... I watched the battle from your satellites... I sure couldn't do half of what you guys can do." She said looking down at her lap. RJ and Meg look at each other again.

* * *

"Can you believe Dom got a relationship before either of us?" Meg asked, taking a swig of her coke.

"I was there, they both started talking about books and it just... happened." RJ responded quietly as they both watched Fran curled up on Dom's side, his blanket pulled over the both of them.

"Well, it's nice to see him with someone who gets him so completely. I mean for a while I though he was never going to let any more people into his world." Meg said quietly. RJ snorted.

"Yeah." He took a drink of his soda. "But then again... I think traveling the world has been very good to him. Just like working in a hospital was good for you and becoming a Master was good for me." Meg arched her eyebrow over her half-raised bottle before she took another drink. "Think about it. We all matured. You're not trying to physically run from your problems anymore, I stopped getting angry all the time, and Dom's not out to destroy the world with his never-ending supply of cherry bombs and other gag equipment." Meg laughed.

"We don't have the time to goof around and plant cherry bombs in your Dad's underwear drawer anymore." RJ laughed at the memory.

"Yeah well my ass thanks us. Dad certainly kicked it hard enough after that." Meg giggled.

"Or how about the time we glued Swoops fans shut? And he grabbed them while the glue was still wet?" RJ winced before laughing more.

"Yeah, he chased us all over the academy grounds shouting threats and obscenities, waving his fists with his fans still clenched in them." RJ said through his laughter as Meg fell into silent hiccups from laughing too much.

"Huh?" Dom shot up.

"Shh." Meg hushed him pointing to his side.

The white ranger looked down at Fran with an expression of wonder, adoration, and amazement.

"She hadn't left your side for four days now. I'd say you owe her one hell of a date after you're discharged."

"Yeah." He said with a mixture of anticipation and terror on his face. "Anyways, what were you two laughing about over there?"

"The good old days, back when we were young and rambunctious and had a death wish."

"The old _Cherry Bomb in Master Finn's underwear drawer_ story?"

"Yep."

"Good times, good times."

"What are you talking about? I _still_ have a boot shaped bruise on my ass!"

"Tsk, whiner."

"Hey!"

* * *


	7. Chapter 7

So, I'm a day late again XP. Don't know why I should even update since I got zero reviews last chapter.

* * *

Teeg slept, only vaguely aware of the fact that she was hurt, that she was being kept in the darkness of her mind by a force not of her own doing. Many times she heard conversations; the woman called Meg was the one to talk the most. This time she was talking about some memory of hers that was her favorite of a person. Other times when Teeg was the most distressed about something she could never remember, she could hear her favorite music, the soothing vocals and instrumentals of Loreena Mckinnett or sometimes she could hear a different music liked from someplace not very far from her.

"_You asked me what colors were like..._" the words drifted about in her mind bringing up pictures of shades and hues.

A song replaced the words as the speaker had finished talking a while ago. Her perception of time was absent in this dream of nothing.

One time she heard Finn's voice asking for her.

"_She's in a coma. I had to reconstruct her ribs and stitch up her lungs, I though it would be better to keep her under till the sutures dissolved._" Meg replied gently.

_Coma: Short for Comatose, the state of mental and physical inactivity, to remain in one too long is dangerous._ It was a very odd thing to learn you are in a coma, Teeg mused.

* * *

Swoop wasn't completely awake, but he could hear everything going on around him. He smiled slightly in his semi-sleep as he listened to Meg resist dancing about the ward to Paint it Black by The Rolling Stones, her steps still taking a rhythmic grace that she was trying hard to fight. Or when it was quiet and everyone else was sleeping, he could hear the flaps of her Ao Dai brush against her cotton pants, the soft shuffle of her slippers against the floor. Mostly though he listened and smiled when she would sit by his bed side, whenever the others were sleeping, and in her lightly honeyed south-western drawl, she would talk to him about her favorite memories form her youth.

RJ was his favorite student. But that didn't mean Meg didn't have a soft spot in his heart. Hell he even liked Dom, as much as he'd deny that one.

And he really did regret alienating her over her choice in becoming a doctor. But it was so frustrating, knowing all the potential she had, and wasting it being a bone saw. She could have taught so many people, taught dozens of candidates for hospital work. But instead she left... to become a doctor. She could have been a great Master, but she wanted to lock herself away inside this sterile hell that stunk of chemicals and the sick. He couldn't even begin to imagine that she was happy cutting up the dead and pouring over poisons and comatose people.

He felt thin fingers wiggle themselves into his hand and squeeze gently. A warning that she was about to change IV bags, that it would hurt even more for a moment. He inhaled sharply through his nose as the IV in his arm jerked and wiggled as the empty bag was replaced by a new, full, one. Once the task was completed he felt the same thin cool fingers rake at his hair in a gesture of comforting before lips were pressed to his forehead. Allowing him to smell her body spray, Oranges and Green Tea. And she was gone to feed Lily that disgusting nutritional jelly they fed comatose patients.

* * *

Lily let the vile jelly to slide down her throat, knowing there was little she could do to stop the intrusion of the substance. But it didn't mean she had to be complaint. Quite often she would work up all of her strength to close her mouth against the spoon.

"Lily... you need to eat, and I know you can hear me. You need to eat to recover faster, and the instant you recover I promise to get you a large vanilla milkshake and a slice of Black Forest Cake. But... you're never going to recover if you don't eat."

Lily begrudgingly accepted the nasty jelly.

* * *

Theo was the next of the merry gang to wake up, a full two days after Finn had, which made his time unconscious at almost a week and a half.

"Hey, you're alive." Meg commented lightly as she fiddled with the machine that was pumping the fluid out of Casey's lungs. He had developed a minor infection in his chest causing fluid to gather in his lungs. The faint sucking sound the machine made always made Meg wince as she imagined the plastic tubes to be scraping the highly sensitive tissue inside the organs. She swished the IV bag containing antibiotics around a bit to knock any air bubbles out of the bag and hooked up the line, letting the air rise out of that as she prepped his arm for insertion of the needle. Theo turned away as the metal of the needle priced the skin, and a cotton swab was taped over the puncture.

"Did we win?" Meg chuckled.

"You know RJ asked the same thing when he first woke up. Yeah, you won." Theo nodded before sinking back into his bed.

A cell phone jingle interrupted Theo's next question.

"Hello?"

The blue ranger could almost hear the response from the other person on the phone.

"I see, and how's Japan?" There was another almost audible response before Meg chuckled.

"Alright honey, you take care on the return trip and I'll see you soon." There was another pause as the doctor listened.

"You really didn't have to..."

"I see, well I will see when you get here, but I have to go I have patients right now."

"Okay, bye." Meg pocketed the phone before returning her attention to Theo.

"Who was that?"

"Isabel, my apprentice. She's on a vacation slash home remedies quest in Japan as part of her training. I sent her there partially to get her out of my hair for the moment while I did autopsies on the kraken victims and partially to further her wish to expand her knowledge in "Natural Healing". I personally don't care much for some of the more... eccentric methods of healing, but I concede that there is some truth to it." Theo nodded.

"Er... do you have a phone I could borrow? I need to calmly brother, I told him that I'd call him if I ever got hurt... he... may want to visit. Is that allowed?" Meg reached into her pocket for her cell.

"Strictly speaking, no. Outsiders aren't allowed knowledge of our society. But you're not the first to break that rule, and generally no one really cares anymore." Meg tossed him her phone before going to check on her comatose patients in the other rooms.

Theo dialed a number he had memorized by heart.

"_Hello?"_

"Luan, it's me Theo... listen, I'm in the hospital..."

* * *

With RJ, Dom, Finn and now Theo, up and about and all under foot. Meg was really starting to miss her apprentice.

_Gods, a cup of tea would be divine right about now._ She lamented. And while she could always send someone down to the cafeteria, she'd been drinking way too much soda as of late. Not only would a cup of tea sound good, she also wouldn't have to spend her time between the comatose, and the critically injured.

_Wouldn't do to have them starve to death either... _She mentally grumbled.

"Dom quit antagonizing the kraken infants. And all of you get back into bed." She called over her shoulder as she went to take updates on her coma patients and swap out their bags. There was a chorus of groans from the men. Meg smiled before heading into the darkened part of her ward.

* * *

On the following Monday the males had been released to Fran and Luan. Which meant that Finn had to stay in the JKP Loft with them. On Tuesday Finn was subtly asking if he could be re-admitted.

"Nope, sorry." Meg said as she eyed the Martin brothers. One was Theo and the other was Luan. Of _that_ she was sure of. But things were complicated in figuring out who's who, when both of them wore blue and both responded to Theo's, or Luan's, name. Finally she gave up and took out a permanent marker and wrote "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" on the twin's respective foreheads. "Remove those and you're in a _world_ of hurt." She promised before capping the marker and trotting off to pry Dom away from the kraken tank... _again_.

Theo and Luan turned to each other and laughed, pointing at his brother's head.

Gabby sat by her uncle holding his hand and adjusting his blanket, amused by Theo and Luan's antics. Of course she could tall them apart, Thing 1 was Theo... or was he Thing 2? She shook her head. RJ, who was sitting by Lily's bed, rubbing her back trying to calm her trhough the painful detox process, was laughing at what Meg did. Or he was until his stomach growled.

"Lunch time. I vote Pizza." There was a groan from everyone awake in the ward at his suggestion.

"Dude, you _live_ in a pizza parlor, how can you not be sick of the stuff by now?"

"I _live_ in a pizza parlor, what does that say about me?"

"I vote cheeseburgers." Theo said.

"Indian." Luan said at the same time. They both look at each other challengingly.

"Chinese." Meg called form the lobby where she was tugging on Dom.

"I second." Dom called trying to get back to the tank to antagonize the inhabitants more.

"Third. Or Pizza, either sounds good." Fran said from her spot on the bed Dom occupied when he was a patient.

"Chinese sounds good to me." Finn said as he was poking around Swoop's medical charts.

Gabby, who was acting as score keeper since she was up for anything, tallied off the votes.

"Okay that's Four for Chinese, Two for Pizza, One for Cheeseburgers, and one for Indian... and... I'll put my vote in for Cheeseburgers too." She said smiled at the twin she assumed was Theo before ducking her head and blushing lightly.

"Chinese it is..." Meg took out her cell and dialed the number of a local delivery.

* * *

Kraken frowned as he watched the krakens mill about. The number of them was smaller; those pesky Pai Zhua managed to actually _kill_ a few of his beloveds. Many more were missing several arms; it would take months to recover the missing limbs.

"Recover, for soon we will feed again." He promised quietly to himself.

* * *

Lily and Phant woke up at roughly the same time. Literally, Meg walked into the room late at night, and nearly dropped her clipboard in surprise as Lily was sitting up and blinking and Phant was rubbing his bandaged arm grimly.

"Y-you're awake earlier than I anticipated." She said lamely. Meg mentally cursed at how tired she was, she should have sensed when they were going to awake.

"Why is my arm numb?" Phant asked. The woman sighed, hoping he would have at least given her a few moments to word herself.

"I had to replace the bone with a titanium replica. Your muscles attached to it perfectly, but you will probably be numb in that arm for the rest of your life." Phant nodded blankly. "You will have minor physical therapy for your limb." He nodded again, swallowing thickly. She wrote on her clip board before excusing herself from the room.

* * *

It was just them, Teeg and Swoop, left. Casey had woke up days prior and insisted on checking himself out to resume training. The doctor dug out her cell phone and dialed RJ's number out of speed dial.

"Lily and Phant are awake now. And I'm going to be taking Swoop and Teeg off of sedatives, so they might even be awake later tonight; it depends on how fast the drugs burn through their system. Even if they awake, I absolutely forbid either of them from leaving this hospital. And no training of any sort, for _at least_ a month, Kraken will just have to be content with less of you if he decides to attack within the next two months."

"_Yes Doctor Byrd._" RJ laughed before hanging up.

* * *

He floated along the currents of the ocean floor, lost deep in thought. If the Power Rangers could drive back his forces once, they can do such again. He sneered at the thought, but he wasn't foolish enough to think he could withstand alone allies against the Pai Zhua twice. The first time he had made such an erroneous judgment, he had been imprisoned in a crystal in the middle of the desert long enough for the world to have changed so drastically.

However, his options were limited; most of his former comrades were dead or just as good as. His fellow Beast Gods had rotted to bones and mold in the ages since their fall. And any creature that remembered him wouldn't be likely to help. He passed by an old-world machine resting on the bottom of the sea, lost, forgotten, its gears rusted and encrusted with barnacles and sea mud.

The gears struck a memory in him, something about a girl... and gears... quite famous now that he thought of it, he never paid any mind to humans, but this girl... there was something wrong about her... something about gears...

The memory came back to him, causing the god to smile, a cruel twist of his mouth.

_Oh... that was simply perfect..._

* * *

With the Rangers plus affiliates, Lily and Phant awake, Swoop and Teeg expected to wake any moment, several of her colleagues demanding to see the results of her surgical technique –and asking if she would consider hosting a training seminar on it, and a few members of the Council present and all crowded in the small room with herself. Meg felt much like what a sardine must feel like.

_I'm one person short of a disaster._ The doctor thought as everyone talked over each other in the already crowded room.

"Hello Doctor Byrd! I'm back from Japan!" Isabel, her assistant chimed right next to the startled woman's ear.

"Speak of the devil. Hello Isabel. Would you mind waiting outside? It's really crowded in here. And I will explain once I calm everyone in here down." Isabel was a tiny girl with natural white hair and skin, and large red eyes who quite often literally hummed with restrained energy and barrage of questions about everything. Though it would appear that way, Isabel actually wasn't always an albino; she was one of the very few Pai Zhua whose spirit animal, in her case the white mouse, had a physical effect on her body. She was an anomaly since while it had been proven that there was a connection between the animal and the person on numerous levels, there was no logical explanation as to why certain animals would physically affect their humans in detrimental ways. Isabel's acquired albinism, Swoop's blindness, there had been countless tests to try and determine why, all came up inconclusive. Meg cast an eye on the crowd and decided that it'd be best to deal with Isabel first.

* * *

The mousy girl was standing in the lab room pulling open her large print bag and riffling through it, pulling out all sorts of interesting things. Though _technically_ her color was white, the little mouse often decorated herself with bright colorful clothing. Meg suspected it was a way to deal with her feelings of inadequacy. Today she chose to wear a crimson and white lehenga. As the girl bobbed around, dancing to whatever song she was making up in her head, the room filled with the tiny chimes of her jewelry making it almost sound like it was raining.

"AHA! Here we go!" She sang and she pulled out a package wrapped in silk and a smaller green pouch attached to it. Meg took the parcel, noting the soft feel of fabric both of the wrapping and inside the package.

"Uh hey Meg, we think Swoop's waking up. So like we need you in here- Oh! Hi, I'm RJ, nice to meet you."

"Hello Master Lupin, I'm Isabel, Doctor Byrd's apprentice." Isabel extended her hand enthusiastically. RJ gasped her hand, biting back the comment once he saw the look on Meg's face.

"Please call me RJ. It's uh... nice to... _finally_... meet... meet?... Uh meet you." RJ recited reading the words Meg was mouthing behind Isabel's back, smiling brightly at her as she blushed in happiness that Doctor Byrd had been telling people about her. She whirled around and beamed at Meg before taking off to the crowd to see what she could do for them.

"Nice to finally meet you?" RJ asked, throwing an arm around Meg's shoulders.

"Oh shut it. She suffers from low self-esteem, she's not capable of being a doctor, and people have bluntly told her that, but she's a pretty handy lab assistant. I... I just can't crush her like that by telling her, not again, but I'm at wits end, she simply cannot calm down. And her heart's so set on being a doctor..." Meg said softly. "I'm hoping Swoop and Finn, after all this blows over, could train her a little bit. If there's anything in this world that'd exhaust a seemingly endless supply of energy, its back to back training with those two." RJ chuckled.

"You can attest to that can't you?" Meg gently elbowed him in the ribs.

"Ow, hey, watch it. I'm still bruised there."

* * *

With refreshments from the cafeteria in stomachs and an agreeable music from all sides playing from a CD in a stereo somewhere everyone had settled down and quieted enough for Meg's standards, while she explained to Phant and all listening the process she went through in replacing Phant's bone with complete success. There were several shudders from those not in the medical field, and applause from those in it. A deep shuddering breath and groan drew the attention of the doctor and room as Swoop woke up.

"Hey, how are you feeling?" Meg was at his side instantly.

"Like shit, put me back under."

"Nope, sorry, gotta live with the pain. However I can put you on a painkiller drip if the pain's that bad."

"Do what you must." He murmured. Stiffening his jaw against the pain of his IV being wiggled by accident as she put a new drip bag next to his other bags. A small buzzer button was placed in his hand.

"You press this when you feeling pain, but it will only give you a shot of painkillers every so often. I will change the time between doses depending on how much pain you seem to be in." Swoop clenched the button in his hand so hard the cracking plastic could be heard.

"Wow. Those things are made to take a lot of pressure." Isabel giggled nervously. "Uhm. Master Swoop, Hi my name's Isabel, and now that you're awake, what would you like? I can get you anything they have in the cafeteria or...?"

"Oh no, he gets hospital food, he's been under for a month now, he's on liquids until I say otherwise." Swoop grimaced and shot her a look silently begging her to pity him. "Sorry, but you haven't eaten real food in a month, your stomach can't handle anything more than jello." She said. "Isabel, be a sweetheart and get Master Swoop some chicken broth." The assistant nodded before disappearing in a blur as she hurried to the kitchens to come back with a large cup of broth.

"Aren't you going to torture me more by telling me every excruciating detail about how you saved my life?" Swoop asked in as light a tone as he could manage while waiting for the anesthesia to kick in.

"I wired up your leg and arm, I recommend not walking under any power grids for a while. You _might_ feel a tingly sensation before you have a heart attack."

"I _will_ walk again though?" Swoop looked incredibly heartened by that news.

"Yes, Doctor Byrd preformed nothing short of miracles on your and the others." A Council Elder spoke over the precessions. Swoop sank into his bed in relief, he didn't want to admit it but, he was afraid of what would have happened to him had he been crippled.

* * *

After questions were asked and Meg had talked herself slightly hoarse, the Council elders and doctors all left, leaving the room much more bearable to be in.

"I am so hungry I'd eat anything right about now." Meg moaned as she sank into a chair next to Swoop's bed.

"Mm, good broth." Swoop deadpanned lifting his cup with his usable hand and sipping deeply of the overly salty but ultimately flavorless broth.

"Ass. I wonder when Teeg is going to wake up." She said changing the direction of the conversation.

"Subs sound good. You're the doctor, aren't you supposed to know this?"

"I've never had her as a patient and I have no idea how the drugs will effect her."

"I say for the sake of convenience, we eat whatever's in the cafeteria." Fran said. Everyone else agreed and elected a two people to go and get food.

"Okay Doctor Byrd, I'll be right back with your order!" Isabel chirped before leaving with Luan, explaining to the inquiry of why she wore Indian clothing.

"Right away Doctor Byrd!" Dom mocked, ducking the projectile Meg sent his way. "Why does she call you "Doctor Byrd"? I hate your last name, I never use it myself."

"Dom." Lily chastened. But Meg merely laughed it off.

"Nah, I'm used to him. I don't know why she calls me that, but I can't get her to stop. And it's okay Dom I don't like your last name either." Meg teased.

"But at least my name's _spelled right_." Meg stuck her tongue out at him, causing laughter from the room at her immaturity.

"Wait, you own name's _wrong_?" Theo cried incredulously. Meg chuckled.

"Well... it's a rather amusing story... But basically one of my ancestors couldn't spell and got it wrong on a marriage certificate. And it's been our legal name ever since."

"Oh yeah the funny story your dad used to tell us about the really bad Shaman and the French Woman who thought she was Sioux, and the daughter in law who refused to take their last name because she thought it was stupid?" RJ asked, laughing.

"You never told me that story." Swoop mused as he swallowed another mouthful of broth.

"Ah perhaps later." Meg promised absently.

* * *

After Swoop had been drugged in a sleeping state by a heady dose of morphine, and the rest of the gang had gone home, including Isabel to her own apartment. Meg stretched in a yawn that she couldn't fight, and went to check on the still unconscious Teeg before heading to bed, Isabel coming in way early tomorrow to let her mentor catch up on much needed sleep.

Her fingers gently tugged on bandages to make sure they weren't loose or too tight, before she grabbed the blanket and tucked the woman up to her chin.

A hand shot out and wrapped around her wrist startling a yelp from the woman.

"Do you believe in magic?" Teeg's quiet voice echoed in the room, raspy and wheezing faintly.

"No, I'm a doctor. And you should have told someone you were awake, I'll send up a cup of broth for you."

"Then why did you mark yourself with old arcane symbols?" The other woman cracked a grey eye to look at Meg, the hand holding her wrist sliding down to rub her palm. Meg's other hand went almost instinctively to the back of her neck, where in her younger days, she had gotten a small Caduceus tattooed there. It was not a terribly suspicious thing for her to get scribed on her, considering it was the adopted symbol for healing. The Uroboros and the Pentacle beneath the Caduceus however often raised eyebrows.

"I u- Ah, one does not need to believe to find the symbols fetching."

"There's something missing in your head isn't there? I saw it in a dream I had right before I woke up." Meg swallowed, wondering if Teeg was all together in that head of hers.

"I think the medicine's giving you funny dreams, that's all. Go to sleep Teeg, I think you need it more than me." Teeg's eyes slid shut lazily and soon the woman was obviously sound asleep.

* * *

He searched the entire world before coming upon a large stone box roughly the size of a building, dropped unceremoniously onto the ocean floor.

"When will mortals learn that the sea does not swallow things like oblivion?' He muttered as his strongest most able-bodied pet wrapped the stone box up in it's tentacles before hefting it up to the surface.

Once free of the water, Kraken went about the outside of the box, his fingers tracing barely there anymore carvings before he found the trick to opening the box. He chuckled darkly to himself as the wall crumbled upon the release and a puff of rank stale air assaulted his nose. Inside the dull whirring of machinery in need of oiling echoed in the darkness. As several pairs of glowing eyes greeted him.

"_Ni cashka laome ratu drehda?_"

_Who is it that set us free?_

* * *

A Lehenga is a type of dress worn in India, originally it was a wedding dress, but in modern times it can be worn for any occasion depending on how casual or dressy the outfit is.

A Lehenga consists of a Choli, a short tight fitting shirt that bares the midriff, and a long flowing skirt.


	8. Chapter 8

Sorry about the long gap between updates. Anyways, here's the next chapter. Enjoy and please review.

* * *

For the first time in years Meg had nightmares. Nightmares about dead bodies and krakens and her parents. Her nervous energy swirled in her stomach and chakra points till even when her alarm clock rang after what should have been 12 hours of rest. She was still in bed, feeling raw and sick.

* * *

Isabel was feeling lost. Doctor Byrd had called in sick. She _sounded_ sick, when Isabel called to beg her to come in.

"I'm sorry; Doctor Byrd called in sick today." Seemed to be her catchphrase.

"_Did she tell you why she called in?" _RJ asked from the other side of the line.

"No, I'm sorry, she just called in sick, I really am sorry, but I'm afraid that I'm not high level enough to give you clearance to the Ward.... However, if you can get her here, or even a hand written note should do it, she can clear you in..." The Mouse said, eyeing around her in case anyone heard her.

"_Thanks Isabel, but if she's really sick I think I'd best bring her over a tub of soup and a movie and chill with her._"

"Tell her I wish her a speedy recovery!" The young woman chirped before a guard poked his head in the doorway, causing her to abandon her call with a quick excuse.

"Yes?"

"The guy's not on the clearance list, but he says you ordered soup for the patients?"

"Yes I did, can you push the cart in for him? And I'll take it to the patients." The guard nodded before turning slightly in the doorway and grabbing the cart from the male nurse and pushing it inside. Isabel giggled as she saw the disappointed look on the nurse's face. She pushed the cart into the room where Swoop and Teeg were both listening to the radio.

"I have soup for you both.

"Soup? I was under the impression that we were to be on a primarily liquid diet. Did Meg change her mind?" Teeg wheezed as she struggled to lift herself up into a sitting position.

"You both ate plain Malt-o-meal for breakfast; I think you deserve some noodles." The young woman said as she left the cart to help Teeg up.

"Has Meg shown up at the hospital yet?"

"I'm terribly sorry Master Swoop, but Dr. Byrd has called in sick today."

"Did she say why?"

"No, I'm sorry. It's probably just a case of overworking herself. You can't pull several weeks of ninety-plus hour shifts and not feel a backlash, no matter how healthy you are." Isabel cautioned as she helped the man adjust to using his un-favored arm to eat with. Swoop remained silent.

Later, as Isabel was off taking care of the comatose patients in the ward, Teeg was able to discover what TV was.

"This is Television? It doesn't really look like the pictures form the books I've read." She commented as she took a spoonful of jello into her mouth.

"Over time Technology changes. People are always discovering new ways to do something." He explained without pausing his reading of the brail book Isabel managed to find. "I remember when Cellphones were large blocky cumbersome things that only the military used; now everyone's got plastic stuck in their ear." Teeg nodded, having had noticed that earlier.

As the reality show she was watching faded off to display a musical bit with brightly colored people smiling and partying, only to have product placement slip in the middle of the musical, and the people seemed to get even happier at the intrusion.

She wondered if the product was really what was making them happy.

After several mini skits that all advertised different products, three of which said another product was inferior to them, the reality show resumed.

"Why would a person willingly subject to this kind of torment?" She asked to no one in particular as she watched a large woman break down into hysteria.

"Because people are desperate." Swoop said deadpan. Teeg nodded and made an enlightened noise before she decided that her jello was far more interesting than watching people slop about in mud looking for whatever the prize item was.

* * *

She was curled up under her blankets with one of her favorite books. It was a thick, well worn story about pirates and magic. Swoop had bought it for her years ago, mostly to shut her up during the long flight to Santorini, and so far she had reread the book, cover to cover, so many times the book had aged decades. Despite her meticulous care.

She was just at the point where the group was splitting up and the heroine had to choose between letting the man she was crushing on go with the woman she thought was highly annoying, but is also crushing on the man, or to be stuck with the woman herself; when her phone rang.

"Hello?" She rasped into the receiver, sandwiching her index finger between the pages to keep her place.

"_Whoa, you really sound sick._" It was RJ.

"How's life at the temple?"

"_I don't understand how Teeg didn't go mental before now… so anyways, what's up, what are you doing at the moment, are you like seriously sick, or under the weather sick? Those general questions."_

"Reading, covered under my blanket in bed, and under the weather. I'll be back my Tuesday if not tomorrow."

"_Okay, just calling to make sure your okay. I'd make some soup, but the kitchens retro. So how about I pick up some soup and a good movie and keep you company?"_

"You're that bored huh?"

"_You have no idea._"

She knew the men were staring at her flawless beauty. Her perfect skin, her luscious hair, the list of her perfections went on. Women sneered and made catty remarks while the men drooled on their shoes. In fifteen thousand years, nothing had changed about people.

* * *

"Hey babe, how about we go out for a drink later." A man leered at her as he came up beside her and tried to put his arm around her shoulder. She watched him, her internal programming recording the sounds, phonics, and syllables, of his language and processing it, running it through a database, translating it entirely before writing the program that would allow her to respond in his language. Her optical sensors did not pick-up any energy signature from him, he was a regular human.

"You are flawed. Die." Her hand shot out and connected, open palmed, to his chest, sending him backwards till he smashed into a concrete pillar. All around people started to scream and flee in terror.

"Sister, my sensors indicate your batteries are low." Her companion and sister informed her. She turned to her sister.

"Thank you for informing me, but I am well aware of the level my power cell's at."

"Stop right there!" A voice shouted. The woman turned to the intruders.

"Who are you and what do you want?" A female voice from the figure in yellow shouted.

"I am Mecha, and I desire perfection." She answered.

* * *

"I am Mecha and I desire perfection?" Meg rasped as she hung out on Swoop's bed, a blanket pulled up to her chin. Beneath the blanket Swoop poked her to scoot over. Isabel ran about gathering antibiotic medications and bandages to patch up the banged up group. Meg shifted herself clumsily and nearly toppled off the bed, had Swoop not reached over, with his injured arm, and pulled her back flush against him. He winced and Meg rubbed his shoulder and collar bone to help ease the pain.

"She obviously isn't human though. Her moves were far beyond what a human body was capable of." RJ added after a moment of silence.

"Uh… if it's of any help, um. During my flight I was seated next to an anthropologist, who was reading a translated book of obscure myths and legends, and we got to talking, and he gave me the book, since it was a copy and he had others back in his office at Cambridge… Uh… I remember something in there about a girl who turned herself into a living doll… if you think it would help I'll go get the book it's in my purse…" Isabel squeaked at the attention.

"The legend you're speaking of is one from an ancient island culture. The island, culture, and their advanced technologies are long gone. A volcano blew the entire island to rubble centuries ago; it is well documented in the Pai Zhua historical archives. The legend speaks of a family with two daughters, one very beautiful but simple, and the other very ugly but brilliant. The ugly daughter was so bothered by her appearance that she became obsessed with perfection and devised a way to turn her body into a living mechanical doll. It is possible that Mecha and the girl in the legend is the same person." Teeg spoke up. People mulled this over.

"Well, that does give us a psychological profiling of our latest enemy. The question is: how do you fight something that willingly gave up their humanity like that?" RJ spoke.

"Obviously she's sensitive about her appearance, even if this Mecha and the legend are the same." Meg reasoned

"So you're saying call her ugly or something."

"I'm saying bodily damage. If she's as vain as she sounds, the slightest imperfection would be intolerable." Meg said as she forced herself up and out of the hospital bed.

"Or could make her really really _really_ angry." RJ argued.

"So why do we want to make her _really really really angry_?" Dom asked.

"It's well known that anger clouds the mind and lessens rationality. It makes strong fighters more dangerous, yes, but also more liable to slip up and make themselves more vulnerable." Phant recited.

"She's a mechanical doll. Angering her might not be a wise idea. She's probably got a computer for a brain. So even if she gets angry, why should it effect her motor-skills any?" Casey reasoned.

"Better yet, she's a robot. Why would she get angry in the first place? How _could_ a machine get angry?" Theo commented.

"All our emotions are, really, are chemicals reacting to electricity; I'd imagine that if she was capable of creating a robotic body, she could find a way to imprint herself digitally." Meg rasped, she accepted a cup of warm tea from Isabel and started flipping though the catalogue of delivery restaurants in the area.

"When did our lives go from a bad kung-fu to a bad scifi?" Theo complained as he slumped back in his seat and crossed his arms in irritation.

* * *

Somehow the entire group had ended up staying at the hospital that night. There wasn't _exactly_ enough room so a few people had to double up. Isabel had snagged a bed in another, unused, room in the wing, and Meg had lucked out and had her own cot in her office. Not that she was using it.  
No, she had the misfortune to have been struck with a severe need to work on the Spirit-animal connection. Something instinctual told her that the connection was simple _and_ complex. But as to what made her head spin. There was some unknown connection.

Off in the other room Master Swoop's spirit stirred harshly, drawing her out of the room.

The green wearing woman abandoned her pad of paper and quietly stepped out of her office. Her cloth shoes whispered on the linoleum flooring, competing with the swish of her loose cotton clothing. She was startled when she looked up to see the Bat Spirit Ranger. She had heard about them from RJ's recounting of the ranger's battles against Dai Shi, but had been under the impression that the Masters' solely controlled them. A swift glance told that Master Swoop was indeed sound asleep. For that matter everyone else was too. The whites of her bandage supply showing in the gloom as they covered the latest battle wounds the rangers had acquired. Her tired green grey eyes flicked back to the ranger-personification, watching it warily.

* * *

"I cannot believe that you succumbed to defeat by those pathetic mortals." Michani of the Mecha scoffed as she preened over her artificial nails.

"Sister, your batteries are-"

"I am well aware of my battery levels! Why don't you be useful and go do something else other than constantly bothering me with your blathering!" The Mechanical woman snapped.

"Of course sister, my apologies. What do you instruct me to do?" The other doll sister replied emotionlessly. Michani rolled her eyes like she didn't want be bothered with something trivial.

"Go rig up a charging station if you're so worried about my batteries! Idiot." Michani flicked her fingers in dismissal. Kraken watched the whole affair with a detached surprise.

"She's not going to be a problem is she?" He asked lightly, pointing off-hand to the doll-woman whose name he hadn't learned.

"Who ? Cyrene? I doubt she has enough free will of her own to do more than boil tea water without instruction." Leptis the Gollum-woman spoke in her sibilant hiss. A forked tongue sliding in and out of her needle like teeth.

"Which is such a pity. Of the two I rather like her." Sidon, the man cursed by a pantheon of vengeful goddesses to forever be a statue of living marble sighed. Kraken, feeling dry and week on land, decided not to partake in the conversation anymore and left back to the cold dark oceans, to wait under the ice cap for his pets to heal and to plot his next attack on the accursed Pai Zhua. Perhaps if he was lucky, they wouldn't have had sufficient time to recover from Michani's attack.

Leptis watched out of dark eyes as the god's back retreated into the ocean waters.

"Personally, I don't trust him." She hissed softly.

"Mm, I remember hearing about him, before we were all imprisoned." Sidon commented neutrally. Leptis eyed the stone man waiting.

"And?" She finally inquired when she realized he wasn't going to elaborate. He shrugged.

"I said I remembered hearing about him." Her eyes slid closed as she restrained the urge to hit him.

* * *

"Alright, I know you can't really talk, but where the hell are you taking me?" It was cold. The light dusting of snow on the ground told her that she missed a lot of the real world. The bat ranger merely continued down the back alleys seemingly oblivious to her. He dodged out of the back alley into the main road and leaped into the air before the general populace could see him.

Meg stepped out into the street and blinked.

"Er, excuse me Sir? What's the date?" The man looked at her and blinked twice in confusion.

"It's November 22nd." He stated, surprised that she appeared out of nowhere, not even wearing a jacket or a scarf.

"I see… thank you." She shook her head and took off following the spirit after the man had turned around. The man turned back and jumped slightly. She was gone.

* * *

Isabel woke to a cloudy day. The soft grey light filtered through the slightly frosted window and shown on the wall of the empty room. She huffed and shivered and got up to check on the comatose patients first.

It was positively _cold_ in the room; she gingerly pressed the chilled buttons to warm the place up before she went about swapping bags. A quick call down to where the spirit animals were assured Isabel that they were all in perfect health. The white wearing female left and went to check up on those in the other room. Everything looked fine. Teeg, despite her strenuous chest injuries, was snoring softly, still wheezing slightly. Finn was sprawled out in a chair close to her, his head thrown back and a small trail of drool escaping down his cheek. It was adorable. The bangles around her ankles jingled softly as she traversed the room to the radio.

"_Good Morning Ocean Bluff! We are looking at a beautifully chilly Snow Day, just in time for Thanksgiving. So call in your requests! Hello, you're on the air:"_ Isabel froze. Snow day? Thanksgiving? She checked the calendar close by. It still read August.

"Wha? It's Thanksgiving?" RJ asked sleepily, the sound from the radio waking him up. Isabel checked her cell phone.

"The day before." She pulled the tack out of the wall and flipped the months till she reached November. "It's snowing out there."

"Really? I love the snow." Lily murmured as she stretched awake.

"Oh no…" Theo groaned, thinking of snowball fights and snow down the back of his shirt, the aching cold wetness… RJ stretched and almost literally jumped out of bed.

"Where are you off to?" Theo asked as he watched the man stride out of the room.

"To get a turkey, we've been so wrapped up in this Kraken nightmare that Thanksgiving's hopped up on us. I think if there's ever a need to relax and partake in life, it's now." RJ rounded the corner out of the room and ran into Meg.

"Where have you been?" He asked, removing a twig from her hair.

"On a wild bat chase."

"Isn't the saying a wild goose…?" She glared at him and he trailed off into silence. She quietly turned on the ball of her foot and slunk into her office, shutting and locking the door behind her.

"Okay…" He murmured before turning back to stick his head in the door.

"Hey Master Swoop? You awake?" Swoop sighed.

"Yes RJ?"

"What did you do to piss Meg off?"

"It wasn't me this time."

"She said something about a 'Wild bat chase', and then locked herself in her office."

"I honestly don't know." RJ shook his head in confusion before turning to resume his original task.

"Poor Doctor Byrd must be really stressed." Isabel said sympathetically.

Teeg, able to sit herself up finally, looked about the room, noticing how empty the room seemed to feel.

"I was wondering if it would be at all possible for me to return to my temple. I have been away far too long." She said as she worried the blanket slightly. Isabel turned red slightly and began to look around her for Doctor Byrd.

"Uhm… l-let me to ask Doctor Byrd." She stuttered, turning to scurry towards the sleeping woman's office.

The light rapid knocking on her door woke the previously asleep woman. She rubbed her eyes and groaned.

"Who is it?" She ground out.

"It's me, Isabel. Uhm… Doctor Byrd, uh… the Temple Guardian wishes to be released to her… Temple."

"Of course…" She muttered. "Absolutely not, she still has a lot of recovering to do." She called out to the woman on the other side of the door who was bouncing from foot to foot in anxiety. Isabel nodded on the other side of the door and turned to deliver the bad news.

"I'm terribly sorry, but Doctor Byrd has declined to release you. She feels that you have not recovered sufficiently."

"I need to return to my temple!" Teeg said her upset evident in her voice.

"I am sorry, but Doctor Byrd…"

"I don't see any harm in letting The Temple Guardian leave to her temple; after all we're all going to the temple too." Finn promised, trying to pacify an upset Teeg. Isabel inhaled and closed her eyes, not wanting to say what she knew she had to say.

"I am sorry. But. Teeg still has to go through physical therapy; her lungs are still far too weak to be subjected to pollution and other outside irritants, _and_ what if she goes into cardio-pulmonary arrest in the dead of night? Are any of you certified in CPR? Or worse: what if her lungs tear? And you're stranded at the temple? There are far too many possibilities of complications; she needs to remain here under surveillance." She said slowly, channeling what she'd anticipate her mentor to have said in the situation. Finn seemed to shrink a bit in his seat and Teeg looked like she was forced to eat a salty lemon.

"Do you know when I might be able to return to the Temple?" Isabel opened her mouth, but shut it shortly afterward.

"You know what, at this very second, I don't really know, we have no idea how your progression has been so far, mostly because we've been busy. But you are due for one anyways, so why don't we take you down and get one to see how your chest's healing hm?" Isabel said turning to make a call down to X-ray.

* * *

As Fran was learning, running a Pizza Parlor was terribly hard work. She marveled at how easy RJ had made it all seem.

"_Today marks the second month since the mysterious illness Boongie Sickness had struck its last victim. The Governments of the World are still cautioning its people to move away from places near water and to remain calm. However, the rumor mill that our Government has positively identified what exactly Boongie Sickness is and that it's a biological weapon against the world by a terrorist organization is yet to be confirmed or denied. But in a few seconds we will cover a televised press release from the President about-"_ The radio personality was cut off by an official sounding voice reciting the opening of an official Presidential press-release._ "Now we take you live to the President of the United States with an announcement pertaining to this Mysterious Disease:" _Kenny, a pimple faced high school kid who worked part time, turned up the radio.

"_My fellow Americans and Citizens of the World, it is my duty to inform you of what exactly the nature of the so called "Boongie Sickness" is. The reality of the situation is sad and startling. There is no way to delicately put this so I'm just going to come right out and say it: There is no such illness as Boongie Sickness. _

"_There is a secret society within all the Governments of the World. They call themselves The Pai Zhua, the Order of the Claw, and they are little more than a brain-washing terrorist cult. They recruit children with false letters of being an elitist martial arts school, then they brain wash the children into rejecting their families and their country, these children then mark themselves with a claw-like symbol on their forearm, symbolizing their complete emersion into the so called society. It is my deepest belief that these cult members are behind Boongie Sickness. My reasoning is that they have admitted to the governments that they are immune to it. I cannot pretend to guess why they have done this heinous act, nor why they refuse to allow the families of the victims the rights to the bodies. All I can do is lead the world in a prayer and to tell the world that I will not cower to these monsters. And I WILL root out all of their influence on our great government. That is all, thank you. Happy Thanksgiving, Good Evening and God Bless America."_

"Oh shit…" Fran whispered and ran up the stairs to the loft to use the phone.

* * *

I'm sorry about the unexpected hiatus. I really, seriously and honestly, had no intention of taking this long to update. But here it is.


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